


The Boy Who Died

by magpie_fngrl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Polyjuice Potion, Reincarnation, Sharing a Bed, Wangxian au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25781938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_fngrl/pseuds/magpie_fngrl
Summary: Harry dies in the forest. Sixteen years later, he comes back to life.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 251
Kudos: 935





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bixgirl1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bixgirl1/gifts).



> My darling Bix, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! ❤️️❤️️❤️️  
> May good fortune smile at you and bring you heaps of joy and happiness this year, because you deserve everything good and joyful and bright. You're one of the most generous people I've ever met, offering inexhaustible love and time and support to your friends, spreading positivity through the community. In these past three-and-a-half years, we've been through a lot, haven't we? We've had a lot of laughs, shared our daily struggles, fangirled over each other's writing. My experience in the Drarry fandom wouldn't be the same without you. I'm grateful that I was lucky enough to get to know you and call you my friend. I'm even more grateful that I managed to drag you into the Untamed fandom! *gremlin laugh* IF I'M GOING DOWN A HOLE, YOU'RE COMING WITH! lol
> 
> Speaking of, here's a little something for your birthday, that you... err... might recognise?
> 
> What happened was that the day after I posted that headcanon on tumblr, I woke up with the idea that I'd like to write one or two short smutty scenes taking place in this universe for your birthday. 5k max, I told myself! A PWP, nothing more!! I told myself! And then this story started pouring out and then I was 9k in and _still hadn't written any sex!_! WTF, Magpie? So, here you are, Bix love, a ~20k story that isn't what I intended, but it's something I've loved writing and I hope it brings a smile to your face.❤️️❤️️❤️️
> 
> Lots of love and gratitude to my awesome beta ❤️️  
>   
> Dear readers, please note that you need **no knowledge of the Untamed/MDZS fandom to follow the story.** It's fully drarry--with a few Easter Eggs for the MDZS fans.  
>   
>  **Please check[my profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_fngrl/profile) for tagging/concrit/permissions info.**  
> 

A team of grey uniformed men with cold eyes surrounded Harry in a dark Whitechapel alley. The rain beat on his thin robes, the robes that had belonged to a Jay Flint, just as Harry’s new body had belonged to him. Harry had barely been back from the dead twenty-four hours and he’d already found himself at the mercy of Voldemort’s new regime. At the prod of a wand he knelt, anticipating his punishment (life, he mused, couldn’t seem to hold him) when the crowd of uniforms parted like the Red Sea, and a tall man in black billowing robes strode towards him.

‘Leave him. I will deal with this.’ The posh, cut-glass voice was familiar. Harry raised his eyes and met Malfoy’s, his gaze burning on his pale face.

He expected to be tossed in some dungeon, but Malfoy Apparated him to a smart townhouse in an expensive London postcode. He ushered Harry in as if he was a guest and shut the door behind him with a complicated spell. ‘You can stay here.’

Harry hovered in the hallway, drenched and wary. Malfoy hadn’t restrained him in any way; in fact, he’d given Harry his wand back ( _Jay’s wand_ ) once they were out of sight of the uniforms. Now he glanced at the puddle forming under Harry’s soaked figure and said, ‘I’ll show you to the bathroom first.’

‘Why am I here?’ Harry asked.

‘Do you have anywhere else to go?’ Malfoy turned and climbed the stairs, and Harry deliberated for a few seconds and then followed him to a marble bathroom where Malfoy had produced towels.

‘Am I under arrest?’ Harry asked.

Malfoy ignored that. ‘I’ll leave something for you to wear.’

‘Will you give me an answer?’ Harry clenched his fists, his temper spilling out. He’d had a particularly trying twenty-four hours and his frustration tipped easily into rage. Waking up in a new body, being an unwilling participant in a blood sacrifice, trying to adjust to a world where Voldemort had reigned for sixteen years. Seeing those sixteen years on Malfoy’s face, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, the heavier set of his jaw; the irrefutable evidence that this wasn’t some dream. Harry had really died, and he’d come back, and in his absence the world had moved on.

Malfoy pressed the towels into Harry’s hands. ‘You’re not under arrest. You’re my guest. We’ll talk more after you dry off.’ He walked out and shut the door behind him.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes (black trousers and a soft black jumper that smelled, faintly, of sandalwood), Harry wandered downstairs. Discreet opulence and understated wealth met him at every step, from the polished honey-wood banister to the soft carpet under his black-socked feet to the exquisite artwork on the cream walls. He found Malfoy in the living room where the fire crackled and the wireless hummed a song Harry didn’t recognise.

Sat in an armchair by the fire, Malfoy raised his eyes when Harry came in but didn’t otherwise move. He’d taken off his travel cloak and robes and had unbuttoned the first couple of buttons of his black shirt. Everything he wore was black, casting his fair skin and silver hair in stark relief. The contrast was… pleasing. Harry’s last memory of Malfoy was of a terrified boy. A man sat in front of him now, and a handsome man at that. The sight of him stirred Harry’s insides in a disconcerting way.

To distract himself, he strolled around the room, taking everything in: the roses in the vases, the tall windows looking out over a quiet, rain-soaked street, the bulging bookcase with a stack of comic books on a shelf. Malfoy watched Harry’s progress in the room in silence. Harry felt his searing gaze like a brand on his skin even when he had his back turned. Tension thrummed in his veins.

After taking a turn around the room, Harry stopped in front of the photos on the mantlepiece and peered at them. Most of them featured a boy at different stages of his life: a toothy toddler in one, a young fair-haired boy on his broomstick in another, an older teen in his Hogwarts uniform in the last. Malfoy was a father: a new shock to add to the day’s long list of surprises. 

The boy’s yellow scarf caught his attention. ‘Your son is a _Hufflepuff_?’ 

‘Does that surprise you?’ Malfoy sounded curious.

Harry gave him an incredulous look. The Malfoys had always boasted of their Slytherin tradition, of how so many generations of them had been Sorted in that House, and how _lesser_ they found the other three. What on earth had happened to Malfoy?

Not that Harry could reveal how well he knew the man. He’d no idea if Jay Flint had ever met Malfoy, and it was imperative that he didn’t reveal his true identity. Judging from the way Malfoy had commanded the grey uniforms, he must be high up in the Voldemort administration. There might be a reason he was being kind to Jay Flint, but a hint of Harry’s real identity and he had no doubt he’d find himself kneeling again and at the mercy of Malfoy’s cruel whims.

Changing the topic, he asked, ‘Is his mother around?’ There were no pictures of her anywhere. 

Malfoy stood and brushed past him on the way to the bar. ‘I adopted Phelan when he was one. He was a war orphan. Ogden’s?’

The boy in the pictures grinned and waved merrily. Phelan looked like a happy, well-taken-care-of kid. A lump grew in Harry’s throat and choked his reply; he nodded instead.

‘That was a nice thing to do,’ he said when Malfoy handed him a glass of firewhisky. ‘Saving a boy from the orphanage.’ Raising him with evident care.

‘Mn.’

This Malfoy didn’t say a lot. Hogwarts-era Malfoy wouldn’t shut up. He’d loved to pontificate in his poncy voice, gushing out threats and maledictions and boasts with endless abandon. Had sixteen years changed the man so much? Harry couldn’t tell if it was maturity, or perhaps a result of living in a world where Voldemort ruled. He remembered the visions of a terrified young man who’d realised — too late — what it'd meant to join the Death Eaters. 

He gulped his drink, letting it burn down his throat. The welcome physical sensation grounded him; he was reeling after the day’s revelations. ‘Why did you bring me here?’

Malfoy stood beside him, his eyes on Harry, _always_ on Harry, searching and intense and probing. A coil of fear roiled in Harry’s stomach; it wouldn’t do for Malfoy to suspect him.

‘I have need of your particular talents,’ Malfoy said.

So he must be acquainted with Jay Flint. ‘I see.’ Trouble was, Harry had no idea what those talents were. When he’d woken up in that bare, blood-spattered room, he’d made a check of Flint’s belongings, but the only thing he could ascertain was that he was the son of a shipping magnate murdered by Voldemort and that he’d spent a few years in a mental institution.

‘Look, I’m grateful to you for saving me from the grey uniforms—’

‘The Harriers.’

Harry blinked. ‘Yes, the Harriers.’ Malfoy didn’t express any astonishment at the fact that Jay Flint hadn’t known something that must have been common knowledge, but his eyes gleamed with a sharp satisfaction. Harry had to get out of there. If he didn’t give himself away by showing his ignorance of this new, grim world, he’d definitely manage it when asked to display those _talents_. ‘—but I can’t stay,’ he finished.

Malfoy gently pried the empty glass from Harry’s fingers. ‘I’ll make dinner.’

‘Am I a captive here?’

‘No.’ Malfoy set the glasses on the coffee table. ‘It’s late. I’ll make a quick pasta, if that’s all right.’

Harry stepped in his way. ‘If I’m not your prisoner, can I leave? If I open the door and walk out, will the wards stop me?’

Malfoy stared at him for a long moment. ‘Do you know what the Harriers were looking for earlier?’

A chill ran down Harry’s spine. He knew. He’d heard the wizards talk as they swept the dark wet streets before they cornered him. The ritual that Jay Flint had cast to summon him, the ritual that gave Harry his new body, had caused a magic disturbance that alerted the wizarding authorities.

‘They were after— after—’ The name lodged itself in his throat, unable to come out.

Malfoy’s eyes glinted strangely. ‘Harry Potter.’ 

Harry’s name on Malfoy’s lips sounded like a prayer answered. Not that Harry could stop and ponder how bizarre that was. Fear coursed through his veins and he curled his hands into fists, wondering if this would end in a fight. He’d tucked the wand down the back of his trousers before coming down. The tension sang between them like a plucked violin string.

Malfoy dispelled it. He stepped back and around Harry. ‘Join me while I cook, and I’ll explain.’ When his footsteps disappeared down the corridor, Harry exhaled and rubbed his sweaty palms on his trousers, his new heart beating fast in his chest.

The mouthwatering aroma of simmering tomato sauce, basil and garlic wafted through the kitchen as Malfoy talked. ‘There was a new prophecy. About six months ago. No one knows the exact content, but it involves someone “returning to life and to triumph”. The Dark Lord immediately understood this person to be— Well, you can guess his first thought.’

Harry could.

Malfoy stirred the sauce, tasting it on a wooden spoon. ‘You were found exceptionally close to the magical disturbance. What’s more, you’re suffering from memory loss, which—’

‘What?’ Harry interrupted. 

Malfoy gave him a piercing look. ‘Aren’t you? I got the impression you’d forgotten a lot of what happened in the past… several years.’

Harry swallowed. Malfoy spoke as if— But no. He couldn’t know he was Harry. For one, Harry looked nothing like his former self. And second, he wouldn’t be trying to help Harry. No way. In the Room of Requirement Malfoy had tried to drag him to the Dark Lord himself.

However, Malfoy had offered Harry the perfect excuse on a plate: memory loss could explain Harry’s ignorance of this new reality. ‘Yeah, I can see how my amnesia could make me a suspect,’ he conceded.

‘The Dark Lord’s Harriers have killed for less.’ Malfoy _Levitated_ two heaping plates and a salad bowl towards the dining room. ‘So, no, you can’t leave the house, but it’s for your safety.’

Having dinner with Malfoy was the second weirdest thing to have happened to Harry since his reincarnation. The first was, naturally, the sight that greeted him every time he glanced at a reflective surface.

His hair, no longer bushy and untamed, ran down his back in a stream of soft, raven-black locks. And he was… Chinese? Slender like before, but a couple of inches taller and (another unexpected benefit) in no need of glasses. When he’d come back to life, Harry’d spent ages looking at himself in the mirror, his trembling hand touching Jay’s sharp cheekbones, his rose of a mouth, the tiny mole under his lower lip. His brown eyes, with no hint of Lily’s green in them. A pang of heartache and loss had pierced him, and he’d taken a moment to mourn his old appearance, the one that marked him as the son of James and Lily. Not a hint of their heritage remained on him now. Not outwards, anyway.

Voldemort’s scar was also gone. Harry wouldn’t miss that.

Everything else he’d encountered in the past day he could accept as the result of Voldemort’s regime: the hushed streets after dark, the grim faces of passersby, the careless cruelty of the Harriers. He’d seen one of them on his street Crucioing a couple they’d stopped for questioning. ‘We don’t know why the magic spiked around here,’ the woman shrieked as her partner coughed up blood on his knees. ‘It wasn’t us!’ Harry had stormed out of Jay’s house, Expeliarmused the dark wizard and would’ve Stunned him, but the man managed to set off a secret signal which alerted the rest of his team.

No, the weirdest thing in these twenty-seven hours was Malfoy. At first glance, Malfoy’s life followed the trajectory Harry would’ve expected: working close to the Dark Lord, living in a fancy house in a posh neighbourhood, exhibiting a casual disregard for someone else’s wishes; Harry’s, in this instance, who wanted to leave.

The boy, Phelan, was a jarring note. If Harry judged his age correctly by the photographs, Malfoy must have adopted him when he was barely out of his teens. It didn’t fit in with what Harry thought he knew about him. 

Another element that didn’t fit: no house-elves. Malfoy cooked with the ease of a single father who’d done this hundreds of times, but Harry would’ve put good money on Malfoy never having stepped inside a kitchen in his youth. Even the way he treated Harry: for all that he kept him here against his will, Malfoy was polite and accommodating.

Harry swallowed a mouthful of what was truly delicious pasta and said, ‘Can you remind me where we met? You know, because of my amnesia.’ Harry had found Jay’s personal papers in a drawer; Jay — JianYu — Flint was twenty-seven years old, much younger than Malfoy and himself.

Malfoy’s fork clattered to the table, staining the white tablecloth. He picked it up, a faint blush dusting his face. He cast a _Scourgify,_ set the wand down and drank some water. Harry waited.

Malfoy coughed lightly. ‘The Flints are one of the families of the Sacred 28. They’re involved in the shipping industry. Our families attended the same balls.’

Harry doubted they’d attended the same parties recently; from what he’d discovered, Flint Senior and the rest of the family had been smuggling Muggleborns out of the country for years before they’d been discovered and summarily executed. Jay himself was unlikely to have been a social butterfly; he’d been institutionalized for over three years.

‘But where did _we_ meet? Which occasion?’ _Why are you being nice to Jay?_

Malfoy clutched his fork tighter and didn’t meet his eyes. ‘We met in a club. Some years ago.’

No more explanation came forth. The clubs Harry’d known about in his youth were places where one went to dance and get off his face on Es. Unless Malfoy meant the exclusive sort of places that posh people were members of; those discreet establishments, all wood and leather and cigar smoke, where wizards and witches of influence could meet and influence one another. That seemed more likely.

Harry wasn’t entirely satisfied with Malfoy’s evasive answer, but it’d have to do. He brushed his hair off his face, _again,_ and was startled as Malfoy abruptly left the table. Bemused (his constant state of mind since yesterday evening), Harry cast his mind back to the conversation to see if he’d been unintentionally rude. He didn’t have time to wonder, though; Malfoy returned holding a long red ribbon.

‘This is for your hair,’ he said. ‘To tie it back.’

‘T-thanks. That’s very… thoughtful.’ Harry set down his fork and shook his hair back, attempting to appear as if he’d tied ponytails his whole life. 

Malfoy stopped him. ‘It’ll be easier if I do it, I think.’

‘Sure, yeah.’

Harry had been wrong: _this_ was the weirdest thing that had happened since his reincarnation. Malfoy ran his hands through Harry’s long hair, smoothing it and bringing it together in a tail. The sensation of Malfoy’s fingers on his scalp brought heat to Harry’s face. He fought the urge to shut his eyes and lean back and let Malfoy stroke his head. That really wouldn’t do. 

Or would Jay do it? Was this something that the real Jay Flint would indulge in?

That line of thinking led down dangerous paths. Harry made to grab Malfoy’s hand to tell him he could do it himself, but Malfoy flinched and drew it away. 

‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean—’

Malfoy resumed the tying of the ponytail. ‘Not to worry. It’s nothing to do with you. It’s the Malfoy ring. No one may touch it.’ 

He’d finished now and sat back down, and Harry took a good look at the silver signet ring on Malfoy’s left hand. ‘What do you mean, no one can touch it? Is it prohibited? Cursed?’

‘It’s merely a tradition, but a powerful one. Only parents and significant others can touch the ring. No one that isn’t a Malfoy, in a way.’

Harry would never pretend to understand all the pureblood nonsense, but he nodded. ‘Noted. Left hand is out of bounds.’

He realised belatedly that it sounded as if the rest of Malfoy’s body was _within_ bounds, but, other than a faint flush on his cheeks, Malfoy didn’t seem to have noticed.

After the meal, Malfoy led him upstairs, handed him a set of pyjamas (black) and ushered him into a small, neat bedroom. ‘I’ll be next door,’ he said — a warning or a promise, Harry wasn’t sure.

Alone at last, Harry tried to marshal his thoughts. It’d been a long, _long_ day, and he was one more revelation away from a complete mental breakdown. Harry had _died_ , he’d chosen to board the train at the ghostly King’s Cross, and now he’d been yanked back to life by a man of an unstable mind, who’d wished for Harry to return and destroy Voldemort. Jay had had a lot of faith in Harry’s ability to do exactly what he’d failed to do the first time he was alive. 

His legs gave out suddenly and he sat heavily on the bed. _Merlin._ Harry had no idea what to do with himself. He needed to find out where his friends were or… or if they were still alive. The idea he came back to a world where Hermione and Ron had been captured and killed by Death Eaters… No. Harry forced his thoughts towards happier speculation: they might have married, each other or other people. Perhaps they had children, like Malfoy. Did his friends remember Harry? Did they miss him?

Harry’s existence had blinked from the dark forest to Jay’s bloodstained floor in his Whitechapel residence, but now the pain of missing his friends stabbed through him. His chest hurt with how much he missed them. Ron and Hermione, their families, Ron’s siblings. _Ginny_.

No matter how solicitous Malfoy had been, no matter what reason he had to look after Jay, Harry had to escape. He dug his (new, slimmer) fingers into his thighs, calming his frantic mind, focusing on his purpose. Taking a deep breath, he headed to the window. The rain lashed him when he opened it and climbed onto the sill. Jay’s wand felt awkward in his hand. It didn’t fit the same way his holly wand had.

Not the way Malfoy’s had, either.

He wished he’d paid better attention at school during Charms class, but he had to try. He poked at the wards, which flashed silver in an intricate pattern. Hermione had said once that all wards rely on “hinges”; that was what held them together and what undid them. Harry thought he noticed what she’d meant. He poked at that spot, and the wards flashed red.

That couldn’t be good.

‘I had a feeling you’d do this,’ Malfoy’s voice came from behind him.

Harry almost fell off the sill. He turned to stare at the door, feeling guilty, and then chastising himself for it. Why should he feel guilty about escaping a place he was held captive, even if Malfoy had been civil and had cooked for him?

 _And saved him from the Harriers_ , a voice reminded him.

‘I’d no idea I was so predictable.’ Harry stretched his legs to the floor and faced Malfoy.

‘I know you too well,’ Malfoy said, a vein pulsing in his neck. He strode in and grabbed Harry’s wand off him. ‘If you leave, I won’t be able to protect you,’ he hissed. 

‘I don’t _want_ your protection,’ Harry said as he was being dragged into the room next door. The door shut — and locked — behind him leaving them in near darkness. Only a candle burned on one of the bedside tables.

‘You’ll sleep here with me,’ Malfoy said, climbing in the bed.

‘ _Excuse_ _me_?’

‘I know you wish to escape. I daresay you’ll find a way, you’re clever enough. So, you’re sleeping here where I can see you.’

 _Was he for real?_ ‘I might kill you in your sleep. Have you considered that?’

‘You won’t.’

Malfoy’s words echoed with utter certainty. Harry frowned and thought of another line of attack. ‘What if I rub against you at night? What if my hands _stray_? Slide under those silk pyjamas of yours, touch your skin…?’ 

After a long moment, Malfoy said in a hoarse voice, ‘You won’t.’

Exhaustion tugged at Harry, and he couldn’t fight anymore. The bed was large enough to accommodate both of them easily, and it’s not like he had any idea where to go if Malfoy turned him out. With a resigned sigh, Harry unbuckled his trousers and shoved them past his knees.

‘What are you doing?’ Malfoy spluttered.

‘What does it look like?’ Harry kicked off the trousers and took off the jumper. He faced Malfoy in the boxers he’d lent Harry. ‘I left the pyjamas you gave me next door. Unless you care to unlock so I can go and get them?’

Malfoy glanced at the door and then at Harry and narrowed his eyes. ‘Stop dithering and get in bed.’

Despite the bite in his voice, Malfoy’s deep blush was evident even in candlelight. Harry smirked to himself as he climbed in. He couldn’t escape — yet — but he’d managed to fluster Malfoy. He’d take any victory, no matter how small.

The sheets smelled of sandalwood and some sort of flowery detergent. On his left, the mattress dipped under Malfoy’s body but there were several inches between them. No sounds drifted from the street but a distant caw. Everything promised a good night’s sleep. 

Harry hadn’t slept since coming back from the dead the evening before. He’d been confused and scared the whole previous night, trying to piece together what had happened to him. Now, as he lay in Malfoy’s bed, his limbs stiff with exhaustion, a new kind of tension wound itself around him. 

Time dragged on while Harry stared at the ceiling, his body straining between fatigue and anxiety. Sleep lured him, but Harry’s mind resisted. He tossed, he turned, he gritted his teeth, he counted sheep: nothing. 

Harry dreaded closing his eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’ Malfoy asked quietly.

‘Did I wake you up?

‘It’s not a problem. What’s wrong?’

What could Harry say? That he feared that if he slept, he wouldn’t wake up again? That he had been reincarnated and didn’t know the rules of his new existence? He fumbled for an excuse that would suit Jay Flint. ‘I suffer from nightmares.’

Malfoy stretched his right hand under the sheets and wrapped it around Harry’s wrist. It could’ve felt like a handcuff, a restraint, but it didn’t: it was as if Malfoy gave him a link to the world of the living. ‘I’ve had nightmares too. My son as well. I’ll be here — if something happens in the night.’ He paused and said even more quietly. ‘You’re safe.’

Before Harry knew it, he’d fallen asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (did i tell you I have the best beta? I have the best beta)

Five days later and Harry remained in a state of bafflement.

Malfoy hadn’t let him leave the house yet, insisting on Harry staying put ‘until his memory loss was cured’. His “condition” made for a convenient excuse for Harry to ask for copies of old newspapers and news about the world, and he decided to take advantage of Malfoy’s hospitality and get his feet under him before he made plans for his future.

As Harry expected, Death Eater members populated the highest ranks of the Ministry, which had been re-organised into departments such as _Public Enlightenment_ , _State Security_ , and _Public Order_. Innocuous names to hide their true purpose: propaganda, surveillance, control. Malfoy led the _State Security_ department, which investigated serious threats to “social stability”. From what Harry gleaned from the papers, getting noticed by _State Security_ didn’t bode well for a citizen. As the Head of one of the most dreaded departments, Malfoy’s workload involved anything from investigating serious crimes to preventing magical attacks to arresting dissidents. He worked in coordination with the Harriers, the brutal, elite force which answered only to Voldemort. ‘I also have a small team of Curse Breakers; they’re exceptionally talented,’ Malfoy said over breakfast one morning. ‘That’s where I worked, in fact. Before I got promoted.’

He sounded very casual for someone whose job involved arresting people who expressed dissatisfaction with the regime. What happened to them? Torture? Azkaban? Death? Harry’s blood chilled at the thought of the danger he would be in if he accidentally betrayed his identity. Whatever reason prompted Malfoy to save Jay Flint, it’d vanish once he learned that Jay had died, and that instead he sheltered someone who constituted a major threat to social stability.

Malfoy would leave in the morning, in his now customary all black, the signet ring flashing on his left hand, and he’d return at nightfall, usually with a treat for Harry. Fresh strawberries in November, starthistle and brown sugar cupcakes, bite-sized treacle tarts, roasted hazelnuts. Harry wondered if Malfoy intended to fatten him up and eat him; if he’d somehow escaped the swift death by the Harriers for a more gruesome death in Malfoy’s oven.

Nonsense. His brain conjured all sorts of scenarios to escape the anguish that the days held. Every piece of news, a fresh heartbreak. Home alone during the day, Harry pored over the copies of _Prophets_ Malfoy had produced, unsurprised to see the paper had become an even bigger propaganda medium than before. “The state thrives!” cried the headlines, but Harry could read between the lines. He noted the disappearances, the prison sentences, the fate of any dissident. The glorification of blood purity. The pure and utter suffocation of free speech.

What Harry sought for the most was news of his friends, which Malfoy also provided. He’d kept a folder of cut-out articles, detailing everything that had happened after the Battle. Harry opened it with a trembling hand. He pieced together the events, his heart breaking the more he read on.

Neville had managed to slay the snake when the Death Eaters had returned to the castle, but McGonagall, realising they faced certain annihilation, had ordered everyone to flee so they could live to fight another day. And so they did: an underground group appeared in the next few months that the newspapers named The Rats. They smuggled Muggleborns out of the country, assisted the Wandless, freed dissidents, forged papers. Blood status I.D.s had to be carried now at all times. Harry had rushed out of Jay’s house without taking anything with him, but Malfoy clearly thought of everything: one evening he returned with the documents Harry needed, including Jay’s pureblood I.D, and a bag of Jay’s clothes and personal effects.

Malfoy hadn’t asked questions about the blood sigil on Jay’s floor, and unease filtered through Harry. Anyone would’ve said something. _What were you playing at, Jay?_ It was a reasonable question. Surely, the state of Jay’s house aroused _some_ curiosity. But if Malfoy had any thoughts, he didn’t express them. More than anything, Harry wished he knew more about the relationship between Jay and Malfoy; what had occurred between them during those sixteen years he didn't exist. Perhaps they'd been friends. Or… or something else.

Harry could find no news of Ron and Hermione in the papers, apart from a rumour that they fled to Australia. Other people hadn’t been so lucky. Molly and Arthur had been caught and executed along with Neville’s grandmother, but the new generation of purebloods had been pardoned. Sent to indoctrination camps for a year, they were evaluated at the end of the “course” and eventually permitted to return to society. Most of them anyway: Luna, Ernie and the Greengrass sisters had failed their evaluation and had been sent to an Icelandic retreat for “further rehabilitation”. Exile, in other words. The gut-wrenching news didn’t end there: Andromeda had been apprehended trying to leave the country with Teddy. She’d been killed on the spot, and Teddy possibly too. Harry assumed the paper didn’t want to report the murder of a baby by their regime, and so Teddy — his brief life and his death — passed from record. Forgotten, a blip in the scheme of things, as if he hadn’t lived.

It was lucky Malfoy was gone during the day so he couldn’t see Harry crying.

In the evenings, Malfoy cooked and answered any other questions Harry might have under the pretence of his memory loss. He reported the matter of the magic spiking in Whitechapel closed. ‘It’s been attributed to a child’s accidental magic.’ Malfoy opened the oven door, the smell of roast chicken making Harry’s mouth water. ‘Not that you don’t need to remain careful. The Dark Lord and the Harriers are alert.’

The roast was cooked to perfection, and Harry told him so when they sat for dinner. Malfoy lit up at the praise. ‘I’m happy you like it,’ he said with a small smile, his eyes lingering on Harry’s. Harry held his gaze, lost in its unexpected warmth, before he caught himself and looked away. His skin flushed hot. 

Malfoy sipped his wine and continued as if the moment hadn’t happened. ‘As it turns out, I’d like to ask you for a favour. My staff discovered what looks like a cursed object in a suburb in Surrey. It’s quite unusual. I’d like you to come with me tomorrow and examine it.’

Ah, Jay’s talents. ‘What’s unusual about it?’ Harry said around a mouthful, his interest piqued.

Malfoy frowned as he tried to explain. ‘It looks like rubbish, but we found it under incredibly strong wards. The object behaves erratically. Almost willfully.’ He paused, thinking. ‘As if it can _think_.’

_A Horcrux._

An icy hand clenched around Harry’s chest. It couldn’t be anything else. Voldemort had been alive all this time to make as many Horcruxes as he wanted. 

Harry had no idea what Jay’s expertise had been, but he knew how to handle Horcruxes. ‘I’ll take a look.’ He set down his cutlery, his appetite evaporating. ‘Hey,’ something occurred to him, ‘do you work on Saturdays?’

‘I’d like to examine this… outside official channels,’ Malfoy said.

 _Hmm_. All week Harry had been adding items in the It-Doesn’t-Add-Up List, regarding Malfoy. For one, Malfoy always spoke of the _Resistance_ and never called it The Rats; that was curious. For another, an old shawl-covered lady had come to the back door two nights ago, and Malfoy had met with her in his garden under a Silencing spell. Yesterday evening Harry caught whispers coming from the living room but when he entered a moment later, Draco was sitting in his armchair with a glass of firewhisky and a book while the fire twinkled merrily, not a speck of green Floo dust on the hearth.

And now this: if this were indeed a particularly suspicious piece of magic, Malfoy should surely have reported it to his Master. But he hadn’t, and more so, he intended to keep his investigation a secret.

A piece of information trickled through Harry’s consciousness. ‘Surrey? Where in Surrey?’

Malfoy stared at his plate. ‘A Muggle street called Privet Drive.’

The candles flickered, sending dancing shadows across the walls. A dog barked outside. On the wireless, the presenter announced a new Celestina song coming up. Harry’s mouth tasted of ashes.

‘Are you OK?’ Malfoy asked.

Harry had been still for too long. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ he replied, seeking refuge in rudeness. He dug his nails into his thighs, the sharp and welcome pain burning through his unsettled mind.

At bedtime, Malfoy insisted on Harry sleeping in his bedroom. Harry’s protests died down rather quickly; Malfoy even stopped locking the door and Harry still shared his bed. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he’d grown accustomed to Malfoy’s right hand curled around his wrist while he slept. The warmth of another body beside him, Malfoy’s soft breathing in the quiet of night, the sandalwood scent of him soaking the sheets — nights became the part of Harry’s new life that he looked forward to the most. At night, Malfoy seemed to lose the defenses he hid behind during the day. He spoke more freely, voicing worries about the future or expressing thoughts unbefitting the Head of Voldemort’s _State Security_. Malfoy seemed to trust Jay implicitly and he also valued him, asking for his opinion and listening attentively. This level of trust and estimation affected Harry in ways he hadn’t anticipated. Malfoy drew him like a magnet, the heat of his gaze combined with his sharp wit provoking a host of emotions inside Harry: curiosity and fascination, a thirst to learn more about Malfoy, and something that resembled _hunger_.

The last one was the hardest to deal with. Harry had known he was attracted to men since the first time he laid eyes on Cedric and the fact that Malfoy had grown to be so attractive didn’t help matters. A glimpse at Malfoy’s mouth or his long legs or his collarbone peeking under his black pyjamas, and Harry would feel the traitorous rush of blood in his body, the spark in his stomach which, if not suppressed quickly, would turn into a blaze.

 _Why not?_ The voice in his head demanded. _Why not let the fire rage?_ Harry had died a fucking virgin. He had a second lease on life, and if that wasn’t a permit to do whatever he pleased while he could, Harry didn’t know what was. At times he thought he noticed his own lust mirrored in Malfoy’s gaze, like when he cooked and Harry sat on the kitchen table, mouth and fingers sticky with treacle syrup or brown sugar, or when Harry left the shower in his pyjama bottoms, his hair soft like a waterfall down his bare shoulders. Harry had taken to sleeping topless; he couldn’t get used to Malfoy’s fancy pyjamas, and although Malfoy had looked extremely put out the first time, he didn’t object.

Once or twice Harry woke up pressed against Malfoy’s side. For a bright moment, just as consciousness returned to him, he dreamed he could snuggle closer, bury his nose in Malfoy’s neck, but Malfoy withdrew from the bed, distant and polite, and Harry was left wondering if he’d made up those blushes and those stares.

++

On Saturday morning, Harry woke up late and followed the smell of a fried breakfast wafting from downstairs. He stumbled, bleary eyed, into the kitchen and stopped short.

‘Err… hello.’ His arms darted up to cover his bare chest as if that’d make a difference. 

Two teenagers sat at the kitchen table with mugs of tea in their hands and amused expressions on their faces upon seeing Harry. One was the boy Harry had seen in the photographs: medium height and lean, he had a Seeker’s build and very fair hair. Phelan Malfoy. Draco’s adopted son. He had one arm around the chair of a stunning girl with spiky purple hair and a smattering of freckles on her alabaster skin. Harry took a seat, desperately wishing he’d put on a dressing gown or a T-shirt before coming down.

‘This is my guest, JianYu Flint,’ Malfoy said with a glimmer of a smirk. He clearly enjoyed Harry’s obvious discomfort.

‘Call me Jay,’ Harry said to the teens, accepting a mug of steamy tea from Malfoy.

The boy waved. ‘Hello, I’m Phelan. Are you my new Daddy, Jay?’

Harry sputtered tea all over the table. ‘Phelan!’ Malfoy chastised.

The teens sniggered. ‘My apologies, Jay.’ Phelan thumped Harry on the back. ‘I’ve always wanted to make that joke, but Dad never has any guests around.’ He gave his father a fond look and then glanced back at Harry. ‘You must be special.’

‘Mr Flint is here to assist me with an investigation.’ A flush spread on Malfoy’s neck and he busied himself with the frying pan.

Phelan turned to the girl and waggled his eyebrows. _Investigation_ , he mouthed. _Phelan you horror_ , she mouthed back and turned to Harry. ‘I’m Victoire Weasley.’

Harry’s hand shook, spilling more tea on the table.

‘Is something the matter?’ she asked.

‘No.’ Harry’s voice came out hoarse and he had to cough to clear it. ‘I—' But he couldn’t explain, not with Malfoy watching the scene hawk-eyed from the cooker. ‘I’m clumsy today.’

She tilted her head, giving him a piercing look. She opened her mouth to speak. ‘Breakfast’s ready,’ Malfoy interrupted. ‘Phelan, could you set the table, please?’

‘I’llgo and get dressed.’ Harry escaped upstairs and threw himself on the bed face down. Bill Weasley’s kid. _Merlin_. Bill and Fleur’s _kid_. Harry stayed with his head pressed in the pillow, his chest tight with an onslaught of emotions — emotions he had to keep a tight lid on, lest anyone suspected — until Malfoy called that the eggs were getting cold.

Privet Drive hadn’t changed. Sure, the cars in the driveways were newer models and more satellite dishes peppered the roofs, but everything else looked exactly as Harry remembered it.

Except one thing: the charred ruin of a house at Number 4. Gone were the prize begonias and the flourishing hydrangeas. Gone were the lace curtains behind which his aunt spied on the neighbourhood. Gone was the yard where Dudley had ridden his shining new bikes. A burned shell stood in the place of Harry’s memories, its gaping windows screaming their message to the world. Harry had no trouble hearing it: this was Voldemort’s boast. Burning the house Harry grew up in and letting it stay like this for sixteen years testified Voldemort’s triumph over the Boy Who Lived, and who then Died.

‘Malfoy, when they torched the house, d-did anyone live there?’ Harry asked, clutching his hands together to stop them from shaking.

‘No,’ Malfoy said gently. ‘It’d been empty for over a year. And please call me Draco.’

He’d been particularly solicitous with Harry on the way here, his concerned gaze straying to him constantly, a hand touching Harry’s back. Gratitude filled Harry, even if he couldn’t express it. A maelstrom of thoughts and feelings raged inside him. Meeting Victoire, and now this… He might not have enjoyed his childhood in Privet Drive, but the blatant glee and hatred behind the arson choked him, filling his veins with the dark slime of frustrated rage.

‘The family that lived here…’ he started again. ‘Any news of them?’

Draco shook his head. ‘Nothing since the war. But we’re forbidden from interacting with the Muggle world. My guess is that they’re safe.’

Harry desperately wished that to be true. Enough people had died because of him. Their names often chimed in his mind before he fell asleep, a litany of victims on Voldemort’s altar: Remus and Tonks, Fred, Colin, Molly and Arthur, Andromeda, poor little Teddy…

The teens trailed behind them, exclaiming at the post-boxes and the electric poles. Pureblood students had permission to leave Hogwarts for the weekend to visit their parents; a new rule. Harry had no idea, though, why Draco took his son and his friend along on this trip.

Their footsteps crunched on the gravel as they approached the entrance. ‘Draco, is that you?’ a voice called from inside.

‘Dad!’ Victoire rushed in, and Harry’s heart thumped loudly. How many more surprises did this day hold?

Draco touched his shoulder. ‘Are you ready to go in?’

Harry nodded. He didn’t trust his voice right now.

The stench of burned wood and dust floated thick in the air as they stepped over the debris-covered ground. Bill Weasley stood in what used to be the living room, an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and another pointing his wand towards an object revolving in the air. He still looked _cool_ sixteen years later, even with the receding hairline and the touch of silver at his temples. An absurd little delight flashed inside Harry when he noticed the fang earring on Bill’s ear. He wished to run to him, hug him, ask him about Ginny and Ron and his other brothers, but he couldn’t, not without betraying who he was. So, he stood back and drank in the sight of him, the eldest Weasley with his red ponytail, his crooked smile, and his beautiful kid.

‘That him?’ Bill asked, nodding at Harry.

‘Yes,’ Draco said, offering no other introductions. ‘Let’s start with disabling the wards. Stay back.’ He directed the last one towards the teenagers, who took out their wands and stepped back in a way that made Harry think they’d done this before.

Harry turned his attention to the revolving object, hidden under a glowing mesh of intricate wards. Bill and Draco worked in synchronised movements to dismantle the object’s protection, explaining what they did at every step to their children, who listened attentively. It was an unusual lesson, and not one, Harry suspected, that the Dark Lord would look kindly on. It reminded Harry of teaching Defence to his classmates when the school curriculum was failing them.

Bill crouched to do something complicated on the ground and groaned.

‘I’d better do it, old man,’ Draco told him. 

‘Who’re you calling “old man”?’ Bill grumbled.

‘The one who denies he’s had back pain for the past six months.’

‘What back pain? I’m a spring chicken. I can still beat your arse at Quidditch.’

Draco laughed out loud. ‘A blatant lie.’ He prodded Bill out of the way and crouched instead. ‘All your kids can attest to my superiority. Right, Victoire?’

Bill gave his daughter a faux don’t-you-dare glare. She snickered. ‘You let in a lot of goals last time, Dad. It was rather embarrassing for the Weasleys. I don’t think Uncle George will ever speak to you again.’

‘Traitor,’ Bill said, giving his daughter a loving smile to take the sting off. ‘Now, stop distracting me, this is where it gets tricky.’

Despite the day’s emotional whiplashes and the gravity of their task in the scorched house, warmth spread inside Harry. He’d never have guessed, back when he was alive, that Draco and Bill would become such good friends. That they’d joke around like this, bring their families together, play Quidditch with their kids. What a brave new world, where Malfoys and Weasleys liked each other. Harry had no idea how this came about, but it had, and it warmed him to his bones that joy and hope could still be found in this bleak, terrifying world.

A _pop_ directed his attention back to the cursed object. ‘Very strong magic,’ Draco was saying.

Bill wiped his forehead. ‘We’re almost there. Protego shields, everyone.’

Harry didn’t carry Jay’s wand, but Draco moved instantly next to him and cast the shield in front of them both. Bill’s hand trembled as he wound it in a tight spiral. With a faint, echoing shriek and the smell of sulphur, the wards vanished, the object fell on the ground, and Harry gasped.

He shook Draco’s hand off his arm and stumbled forward, unheeding of the debris in the room. His pulse rang in his ears and if the others spoke to him, Harry couldn’t hear them. Glinting in the light coming through the collapsed roof, the shard of Sirius’s mirror lay on the charred ground.

Voldemort had turned Sirius’s mirror into a _Horcrux_.

The urge to vomit rose inside Harry and he suppressed it with substantial effort. These past five days since he’d been back, he’d actively avoided thinking about what had happened to his dead body. Whatever its fate, here was how Voldemort had treated the sentimental, broken things Harry had carried in the mokeskin pouch around his neck. Had he also turned the Marauder’s Map into a Horcrux? Harry’s broken wand? _His mother’s letter?_

The ringing in Harry’s ears intensified, his whole body trembled, and a wave of pure, cold fury rose inside him, eradicating every other thought. Jay had brought him back to put an end to the Dark Lord’s reign. Well, Harry would fucking _obliterate_ Voldemort. He’d raze his Ministry and his Harriers and his Death Eaters to the ground and this time he wouldn’t fail. Harry might have died before he turned eighteen, but he wasn’t that age anymore. His association with the teens — childlike and innocent in his eyes — revealed that with perfect clarity. Whether this was because of Jay’s twenty-seven-year-old brain or because passing through death had imbued Harry with the gravity of the Other Side was a question best left for the philosophers. What mattered was that, right now, each beat of Harry’s heart, young and ancient at the same time, fuelled his wrath and his desire for retribution and justice; it narrowed his focus to one objective: destroy Voldemort, once and for all. 

The warmth of a hand on his back filtered through his perception. A hint of sandalwood reached his nose. Draco. Harry breathed in deep, steadying himself. He held his purpose, diamond-bright, in his heart; it was as if an engine had started, flooding his veins with electric energy. ‘I’m good,’ he said. Draco’s frown deepened. ‘No, really.’

The others had gathered around the shard, which lay innocently on the ground. Images flashed on its surface now and again, too fast to make out. 

Phelan bent lower. ‘I don’t see how this can think for itself, Dad. It doesn’t _do_ anything.’

‘Step back,’ warned Harry. ‘All of you.’

Bill had been casting diagnostics over it. He shot Harry a curious look. ‘Can you recognise what curse this is?’

Could Harry say for certain? He crouched, picked the mirror up and held it to the weak light. Its edges felt familiar to his fingers; he’d held it so often in the months before he’d died. 

The images in the mirror rippled and solidified. A pair of blue eyes blinked open. Harry would recognise them anywhere. Joy flared inside him, brief and sharp, before blood welled from the eyes in the mirror. They shut in a grimace of agony. _Ron!_ Harry almost uttered it out loud, but he swallowed his scream in time. He tossed the defiled mirror on the ground, his heart thundering. _Lies._ Lies and deceit, designed to find the opponent’s weak spots and exploit them. That was how a Horcrux worked.

‘Yes.’ He rose and dusted off his hands on his robes. ‘I know what it is, and I know how to destroy it.’

‘Well?’ Instead of looking reassured, a suspicious expression spread on Bill’s face.

Harry had no idea what got Bill’s hackles up. ‘It’s called a Horcrux. It contains the soul of a person and it possesses a will. If I’m right about whose soul this is, then it’s exceptionally malevolent. It’ll fight back.’ He glanced at the teenagers, who watched avidly. ‘It can and will harm you.’

Bill stalked up to Harry. ‘And you know this, how?’

Draco intervened. ‘Bill. You can trust him.’

‘You’re well aware—’

‘I know. I can’t explain right now, but— If you trust me… you can trust _him_.’

Bill and Draco conducted a wordless conversation with their eyes for a long moment. Finally, Bill huffed and stepped back. ‘He knows about Horcruxes. That’s reason enough to—’ He raised his palms at Draco’s scowl. ‘Fine. I’m listening.’

The distrust in Bill’s gaze towards him hurt Harry. ‘How on earth don’t _you_ know about them?’ he asked, his temper getting the better of him. ‘You’ve been a Curse Breaker for twenty years! How is a spell like this not covered in the Curse-Breaker handbook?’

‘This, to my knowledge, is a supremely rare spell; forbidden for seven centuries and recorded in the most obscure grimoires. Not something we learn in the Academy, and it’s not something I’ve personally encountered in twenty years of work in the field. And what’s more—’

Draco interrupted, ‘The Dark Lord had every book on Horcruxes destroyed fifteen years ago. Every single copy. We have’ —he glanced at Bill— ‘some contacts who have alerted us to the possibility of this dark magic existing, but we are unable to rely on them for further help.’ He paused and met Harry’s eyes. ‘Besides them, no one alive right now knows how to recognise or deal with Horcruxes.’ Another pause, voice going low. ‘Except you.’

The shock reverberated through Harry’s body. Voldemort had taken every care so that his Horcruxes would remain unharmed. What better way than to ensure no one knows what they are or how to destroy them?

Except an institutionalised young man. Harry shouldn’t be surprised that Jay had knowledge of Horcruxes. After all, he’d discovered a ritual that brought Harry’s soul back from the dead. But how did Draco know about this? It didn’t sound like something one would easily divulge to the Head of _State Security_. ‘Is this why you saved me? Because I know about Horcruxes?’

Draco spoke without looking at him. ‘I knew you had a keen interest in arcane spells. I had no way of knowing which spells these might be, but I suspected they could prove of use to me.’ He met Harry’s eyes then. ‘As it turns out, I was right. I usually am.’

Ah here was the old Malfoy, arrogant and smug. Harry almost felt nostalgic. He automatically pushed back, a habit formed during years and years of feuding. ‘Aren’t you a bit full of yourself? The way I see it, it was pure luck that I happened to know about this particular spell.’

A strange smile. Draco’s eyes pierced Harry as if he could see through him. ‘I don’t believe in luck.’

Eyes locked with each other’s, Harry could have sworn the rest of the room had disappeared. Heat gathered in the pool of his stomach. Merlin, why was Draco’s arrogance so attractive?

‘Can you tell us how to destroy it?’ Bill asked, breaking the moment. Beside him, Phelan wore a curious frown on his face.

Harry steered his mind to the task at hand. ‘You need to damage it beyond repair. Basilisk venom works, and so does Fiendfyre.’

Draco blanched.

‘Fiendfyre will destroy it? I can cast that.’ Bill examined the mirror, his attention caught by an image. He stared, unblinking, his expression rippling into terror.

‘Stop looking at it!’ Harry called.

Victoire rushed and grabbed Bill’s arm, whispering in her father’s ear. She spoke urgently, her fingers digging into his arm, until Bill tore his eyes from the mirror and heaved a breath, his face drenched in sweat. ‘It fights back,’ he murmured. Louder he said, ‘We need to destroy it now.’

‘Can you control the fire?’ Harry didn’t want a repeat of the Room of Requirement. 

‘I know how to stop it too,’ Draco said, face still pale. ‘It was one of the first spells I mastered when I started work.’

Harry could guess why. ‘Well, then. Might as well go for it.’ He led the kids to the back of the room while Draco and Bill cast a protective circle and a few other enchantments on themselves and on the surroundings. Then, with a hiss, fire burst from Bill’s wand. Draco kept his own wand trained on the blaze, his forearm shaking, his back damp with sweat. The mirror flashed with images, ghostly shapes rising, and Bill shut his eyes, keeping his wand arm steady.

‘Dad!’ Victoire whispered, clutching Phelan. He drew her close to him. 

The heat around them rose, sweat gathering on Harry’s face. The walls shimmered like a mirage. A piercing chime reverberated, raising the hairs on Harry’s neck. He wished he could do more than offer knowledge, but Bill and Draco had sixteen years of Curse-Breaking experience on him. The resounding ding and the stifling heat rose abruptly, tension coiling tight around Harry’s lungs. His heart raced, panic rising that Draco… Draco was so close to the fire—

And then with a screech, the mirror melted. Bill opened his eyes, Draco stood straight, and they vanished the cursed fire with methodical, practised gestures. Phelan exhaled loudly. A cool breeze drifted from outside, carrying the sound of a radio programme from a nearby open window. The smell of wet lawn wafted in; a drizzle had started, falling soft through the gaps in the roof.

It was done: one Horcrux down.

++

The rest of the day passed in such mundane domesticity that it made the morning seem like a half-forgotten nightmare. The Weasleys and the Malfoys said farewell at the end of the street. Victoire followed her father home, making arrangements to return the next night so she and Phelan could Floo back to Hogwarts from Draco’s fireplace; a perk of his status, Harry supposed. The three of them had a rather silent lunch at _The Ticklish Thestral_ , and took a walk along the river. Household chores kept them busy afterwards: laundry, dusting, cooking; Phelan doing homework at the kitchen table, biting his quill the way Ron used to, and Harry helping Draco fold laundered sheets, a cloud of lavender in the air. By dinner time, Phelan had returned to the mischievous, smirking self that Harry had met in the morning and Draco wore a fond and exasperated look when he gazed at his son. The Malfoy household brimmed with love, and Harry was almost distracted.

 _Almost_. The whole day had mounted an unprecedented emotional assault on him, almost equal to the evening he’d been reincarnated, and tension still sang in his veins. His childhood home burned, his godfather’s mirror fouled, Bill and his kid, Ron’s bleeding eyes, the blast of cursed fire on his face again; Harry felt scraped raw inside. He folded clothes and swept and cooked, he ate and laughed and conversed, pushing the morning’s events deep inside, but they slipped through his control, rising like poisonous vapours. 

Night fell like an exhale. Phelan retired to his room, and Harry slid gratefully in bed beside Draco. Restlessness held every inch of his body hostage; the darkness and the quiet only emphasized the fire ravaging in his chest. 

He glanced to his left. A sliver of street light fell on Draco’s profile, highlighting his nose and the curve of his lips. He was facing the ceiling, his jaw tight. ‘Can’t sleep?’ Harry asked.

‘Mn.’

Draco must have known whose soul fragment he’d destroyed. He’d never been an idiot. He must have known the danger he and his son faced if caught, and he’d done it anyway. This new information slid like a puzzle piece against all the other pieces that Harry had been collecting these past six days. It certainly shed light on Draco’s friendship with Bill and the rest of the Weasleys. Harry’s grudging respect for Draco tipped into admiration. It was one thing expressing your dislike of the new world order in the privacy of your bedroom; another to actively work against it.

Just before he died, Harry had learned the truth about Snape. His bravery and sacrifice. He’d devoted years of his life to a single purpose, out of guilt; for the memory of his childhood friend, who he had loved and then betrayed.

‘Do you often take the boy out to these kinds of assignments?’ Harry asked.

Draco shut his eyes. ‘I worry about him.’

‘Is that why you teach him those skills?’

‘Yes. I dread to think what might happen if—’

‘If?’

‘If I’m not around to protect him.’

‘You’re Head of _State Security_. You’re—’ Harry didn’t want to say: _His right hand_. ‘You’re safe.’

Draco laughed bitterly. ‘A world where the Dark Lord reigns isn’t safe for anyone. Surely _you_ know that.’

Harry couldn’t guess as to what Jay had known, but as Harry, he understood. Voldemort expected perfect obedience and competency, and the punishment for failure came swift and hard. Even the most loyal subjects had faced Voldemort’s displeasure for failing to perform to his expectations. A whisper of Draco’s activities to the Dark Lord’s ear would spell an agonising end for him and his son. The mere thought chilled Harry, sending shivers down his spine.

After the morning’s events, Harry had been debating revealing his identity to Draco. He smirked to himself, imagining the conversation: _Hey, Malfoy, guess what? It’s your school rival, come back from the dead! In some other bloke’s body no less! What a mindfuck, eh? Now, how about a cuppa?_

However, the anxiety in Draco’s voice made Harry’s decision for him. The more he stayed there, the more he put Draco and Phelan in danger. Not that he could flee to Bill’s; he’d be putting _him_ at risk. Staying here meant he could assist in seeking Horcruxes, but Draco could never know he’d been sheltering Harry Potter. Plausible deniability. It might count for something against Voldemort’s wrath.

Draco turned his head to gaze at Harry, his eyes dark. ‘What are you thinking?’

Harry breathed in Draco’s scent. The tension in his body simmered, screamed for release. ‘Have you… have you never wanted a partner? A parent for Phelan?’

Draco said nothing.

‘Was there ever someone you loved?’ Harry insisted. _Did you love Jay?_

Draco swallowed. His reply came almost inaudible. ‘There was.’

‘What happened?’

‘He— He was lost. A very long time ago.’

 _Lost_ could mean a number of things. It could mean death; torture; exile. It could mean being sent to an asylum. Something had happened between Draco and Jay; Harry was certain of it. Draco’s behaviour this past week couldn’t be explained solely as a desire to use Jay’s arcane knowledge. ‘Tell me.’ Harry slid an inch closer, his eyes locked on Draco’s. ‘Were we friends? You and I?’

Draco wore a bitter smile. ‘Not friends, no.’ 

‘Then… were we lovers?’ 

A sharp inhale. ‘What?’

‘Well, lovers don’t need to be friends. Right?’

Draco’s eyes travelled over Harry’s face. ‘No, we weren’t lovers either.’

Harry was close enough to feel Draco’s breath on his face; to take in the details of Draco’s face: his pale lashes over his hooded eyes; the fair stubble on his jaw; his parted lips, inviting. His heart beat an unsteady tattoo in his ribs. ‘Why are you protecting me?’ The question spilled out of him unbidden. 

Unfathomable regret rippled over Draco’s face. ‘Because, in the past, when it mattered, I didn’t stand by your side.’

His expression was so flayed with emotion that Harry’s breath was caught in his chest. Draco continued. ‘I should’ve listened to you, I should’ve helped you, I should’ve made different choices. But I didn’t. And I’ve regretted this for—’ He stopped, abruptly. ‘For a long time.’ 

Harry succumbed to the urge to touch him. He traced Draco’s cheekbone, letting his finger rest on the corner of his lips. ‘You’re making it up to me. I’m here now.’

‘You _are_ ,’ Draco said with a startling force of emotion. ‘Merlin, _you are_.’ 

His gaze fell fervent and hungry and _aching_ on Harry. It blasted through the last of Harry’s defences. He moved forward and kissed Draco, who let out a pleased groan. Draco’s lips opened eagerly under Harry’s, his tongue sinful against his, and Harry forgot everything about this day and the world around them. He lost himself in the kiss, in Draco’s strong arms, in the caresses that explored Harry’s back, his thighs, the curves of his arse. Every searing touch, every broken sound Draco made, every cant of hips and lick of his tongue fanned the flames inside Harry to a towering blaze. There was nothing he’d wanted more in his life; nothing more than this. 

He climbed over Draco, his hair falling like a curtain around them, and kissed him until his lungs screamed. Draco’s hands were a vice on his hips; he tilted his groin upward, his erection rubbing against Harry’s. Harry shut his eyes, his whole body alive with pleasure. 

When he opened them, he gazed down at Draco, his flushed face glowing with such joy that he seemed transformed. He looked younger, breath-takingly beautiful, and so happy that Harry’s heart skipped a beat. _He_ ’d caused this. Merlin, he’d give anything to see this expression on Draco again. 

To cover his thundering heart, he aimed for humour. ‘I should’ve asked first, but… is this OK?’

Draco chuckled. His eyes were so, _so_ fond. ‘You’ve always had poor impulse control.’

The word _always_ niggled at Harry’s consciousness and he swatted it away. He had other matters at hand. He rubbed his cock against Draco’s, thrilled and incredibly aroused to see Draco’s fluttering eyes; to hear his soft gasp. He leaned and nipped at his lip. ‘I take it you’re complaining?’

‘No complaints,’ Draco said. ‘Or maybe one.’ He glanced meaningfully down Harry’s body. ‘You’re still clothed.’

‘You’d better do something about it then.’

He had a second to catch Draco’s dangerous smirk before he toppled Harry on his back and climbed over him. He rolled his hips against Harry’s, a slow, sinuous rhythm that emptied Harry’s brain of anything that wasn’t _Draco_. 

‘The cheek of you,’ Draco murmured, low and pleased, tracing Harry’s stomach with a long finger.

‘You like it,’ was Harry’s pathetic comeback. Not his fault; his brain had been obliterated by Draco’s questing hands.

‘I do,’ Draco rasped. His heat, his sandalwood cologne, his body enveloped Harry. ‘I’ve wanted you for so long.’ The longing in his voice was unmistakable. ‘I can’t believe you’re _here_. That you’re in my arms.’ He buried his face in Harry’s neck, kissing and licking and inhaling his scent.

But Harry had frozen. The niggling thought from before sank its claws in Harry’s mind. He couldn’t escape the truth anymore: Draco thought he was having sex with _Jay_.

Bitter, fathomless regret crushed him and he couldn’t breathe. The one joyous thing that happened to Harry in a week of heartbreak and pain, and he couldn’t have it. He wasn’t even allowed this. His eyes stung. ‘Draco.’

Something in his voice must have alerted Draco. He stopped grinding, pulled his mouth from Harry’s nipple and glanced at him.

‘I need you to stop.’ Harry hated saying it, hated seeing the light leave Draco’s eyes, hated the way his expression shuttered. ‘I—’ How could he explain it? ‘I want to, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think we should.’ 

Empty words to cover the excruciating truth: _you want someone who isn’t me._

Draco nodded, his face blank. He climbed off Harry, fixed the collar of his pyjamas, and spoke without looking at him. ‘It won’t happen again.’ With precise movements, he straightened the covers and tugged them over them.

Harry’s chest ached with a profound sense of loss. ‘If-if things were different—’

‘There’s no need to explain.’ He found Harry’s wrist under the blankets and held it gently. ‘Sleep now. It’s been a long day.’

Harry hoped for solace in sleep, but he dreamed he roamed an empty house with dusty floors and bare walls. His footsteps echoed in the silence as he searched for something he’d lost, but, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember what it was.


	3. Chapter 3

At breakfast, under a torrent of chatter by an irritatingly awake teenager, Harry sought for somewhere to point his eyes. He‘d rather avoid the stiff expression on Draco’s face, and Phelan resembled his father a fair bit. So Harry divided his gaze between his toast, the butter, the marmalade jar with the peeling label, the sticky lid of the honey pot, his knife. He sipped his tea. Lukewarm. Darting a glance sideways, he saw that Draco’s cup stood untouched.

Perhaps they should talk. Not that Harry knew what he could say.

‘...such a bore, honestly, why is the school not employing a more fascinating ghost to teach us, I mean do we really need to know about the Goblin financial reforms of 1346, or maybe we do, but it should be an elective, many of us believe so, we made a petition and everything, but Headmistress Patil said— Dad, what’s happened?’

Harry snapped his eyes to Draco, who had gone pale. He was clutching his left forearm; turmoil clouded his eyes for a brief moment. He then rose, face wiped of all expression, and set his cutlery down with care. Proper as always. ‘My apologies. I need to attend a meeting.’

‘Are you being summoned?’ Phelan asked, face white.

‘Come see me out, Phelan.’

Distantly, Harry was aware that eavesdropping was wrong. However, that didn’t stop him from padding to the doorway and listening in on the two men in the hallway. The summons, from Voldemort no doubt, coming a day after they took out the Horcrux was disquieting, to say the least. 

Phelan’s voice was laced with anxiety. ‘Do you know why he wants to see you?’

‘I have a guess.’

Voldemort had never felt the Horcruxes being destroyed before. Dread chilled Harry’s heart at the thought they’d been discovered. _It can’t be this_ , he told himself. _It’s not about the Horcrux. No._

‘It’s probably nothing.’ Draco echoed Harry’s thoughts.

Harry peeked around the corner. Draco rested his hands on Phelan’s shoulders, eyes fixed on his son’s. ‘I have to report to him now and again. But— but if I’m not back in a few hours… you know what to do.’

Phelan nodded, face grave.

‘Good boy. Now listen: you must protect our guest. You mustn’t let him be captured. This is of the utmost importance. Do you understand me?’

If Phelan was surprised by this request, he didn’t show it. ‘I understand.’

‘Take him to Kali. She’ll know what to do.’

Phelan swallowed. He attempted to keep his expression sombre and collected, like his father’s, but it crumbled into distress. His voice cracked. ‘Will you be OK?’

Draco held his son’s face in his palms. ‘Aren’t I always?’ He kissed Phelan’s hair and straightened, his voice sharp and business-like. ‘I’ll be back soon. Do your homework.’

Harry returned to the unfinished breakfast, chilled to his marrow. For want of something to do with himself, he cleared the table, gathered the dishes and washed them by hand. A few minutes later, wordless and red-eyed, Phelan joined him, taking each plate and drying it. They didn’t speak. The clock ticked away the minutes.

It rained non-stop, chilly mist pressing against the tall living room windows. Outside the city slumbered; occasionally the discreet purr of an expensive car rumbled along the street. Over an hour had passed since Draco had left. Harry had picked a book from the shelves, a thriller about a witch going on the lam after witnessing a vampire honour killing, but he’d read less than three paragraphs in the past half hour. Phelan worked on an essay sprawled on the carpet, but his eyes strayed to Harry repeatedly. Harry pretended not to notice.

‘What do you know about retrograde Scorpio?’ Phelan asked.

‘I know there’s no retrograde Scorpio.’

‘Isn’t there?’ Phelan scratched his chin. He glanced at his notes. ‘Ahh, the retrograde _ruler of_ Scorpio. I meant retrograde Pluto.’

‘Can’t say I remember much,’ Harry admitted. ‘But I know a cool way to measure a planet’s apparent retrogradation. Would that help?’

Phelan beamed and offered him his quill.

Harry kneeled on the carpet and bent over the parchment. Hermione had shown him and Ron this neat little trick back in their fourth year. Funny how something so insignificant in the grand scheme of things — the memory of a mundane evening in his school days, drawing retrograde loops with his two best friends in the noisy Gryffindor common room — brought him such profound joy. The burst of happiness shifted to a pang of pain: he hadn’t discovered a shred of news about Ron, Hermione and Ginny this past week. The more days passed without a word about them, the more his worry increased, ready to tip over the edge into pure distress. 

‘Cool!’ Phelan’s eyes lit up when Harry finished scribbling the calculation of the loop. ‘That’ll save me _hours_! Can’t wait to show my friends.’

Phelan resembled Draco so much that it baffled Harry. Here was Draco’s white-blond hair, longer and more untidy; the same curve of lips; the sharp angles of Draco’s face on a sixteen-year-old boy who supposedly wasn’t a blood relation to his father. If Harry hadn’t known what life had been like for Draco in the last year before the battle at Hogwarts, he’d assume he’d left someone pregnant and then pretended the kid was an adoption. 

He caught himself staring, smiled awkwardly and returned to the sofa. Phelan bit his lip. Harry picked up his novel, not really reading but waiting for what he suspected was coming. He didn’t have to wait long. Phelan wrote a few lines, crossed out some words, and then he put his quill down and looked up.

‘My dad likes you a lot,’ he accused Harry.

Harry couldn’t deny it so he said nothing.

‘It’s odd…’ Phelan frowned. The fire tinged his fine features with rosy light. ‘He’s known you for a few days and he’s ready to trust you with our secrets.’ 

Harry had no idea how to explain what he himself barely understood. ‘We have some history. I don’t remember what it is, but we do.’

‘Do you?’ Phelan pushed his blond hair off his forehead. ‘No offense, but he never mentioned you.’ He raised a hand when Harry opened his mouth. ‘I know what you think. That he wouldn’t tell his kid about his lovers.’

Harry’s cheeks burned at the “lovers”, but Phelan stormed right on. ‘You’d be _wrong_. He tells me everything. Everything that’s important, anyway; that affects our life. He’s never had boyfriends, or dates, or mentioned a coworker at dinner with some fondness or something. And he wouldn’t. Dad’s held a torch for some bloke who’d died in the war for as long as I’ve been alive. He didn’t care to date.’

‘Someone who died in the war?’ Stunned, Harry set the book down carelessly. It fell on the carpet with a thump. His mind whirred with this new information. That must be who Draco meant the previous night when he said he lost someone. 

It couldn’t have been Jay, obviously. He was ten or eleven then. _Oh my god_ , Harry thought with some horror, _had Draco loved Crabbe?_

He shook the thought away as absurd. Draco had seemed distinctly uncomfortable around Crabbe and Goyle in the Room of Requirement, the last time Harry had seen him before he died.

‘And now you’ve showed up,’ Phelan was muttering, ‘and a week later, Dad’s like “oh let’s take Jay to secret missions” and “gotta save Jay at all costs” and “let’s tell Jay all our secrets”.’ He poked the carpet with a finger as he spoke, his pretty face sulking, and Harry had to smile.

‘Your father loves you very much, Phelan. I’ve only been here for a brief time, and it’s clearer than day. He would do anything for you.’

Phelan shrugged. ‘I know he would. He’s done a lot to protect me already.’ He glanced at Harry, a faint line between his brows. ‘I just don’t understand how Dad could trust so thoroughly someone he doesn’t know all that well.’

Harry picked up the fallen novel and straightened the pages. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I don’t understand either.’

His admission appeased Phelan. Perhaps he felt a kinship with Harry now that it was clear both of them were in the dark about what was going on in Draco’s mind. He bent over his essay, and Harry stared at the cover of _The Witch in the Floo_ , but he was startled out of his tangled thoughts by a sharp exclamation.

‘I know!’ Phelan grinned triumphantly. ‘I know who you are!’

Harry froze. ‘What?’

Phelan glanced around as if they hadn’t been alone and he lowered his voice so much that Harry had to lean forward. ‘You’re one of _them_!’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘One of the—’ Phelan mouthed the next word ‘— _Resistance_. But,’ he continued in a normal pitch, ‘you’ve forgotten it! _That’s_ why he trusts you. _That’s_ why he said to take you to Kali. You’re one of them.’ Phelan’s eyes lit up in reverence. He crossed his legs, warming up to his idea. ‘Perhaps that’s how you got amnesia. You got hurt in the line of duty. But Dad couldn’t let anything happen to you; you’re one of us, and you seem to know things we need. Ooohh! I know! What if, what if you saved dad’s life once, and he _owes_ you? And he wants me to look after you and everything, because I wouldn’t have my dad if it weren’t for you. That is so touching. How did you end up forgetting? Did they Ra.L.P. you too hard? Or maybe they tortured you. Do you have any scars?’ he asked, eagerly.

Harry swallowed. ‘I have no scars.’ No lightning on the forehead, no _I must not tell lies_ on the hand, no burn over the heart. ‘You have a vivid imagination.’

‘It could all be true,’ Phelan said. ‘It’s not like you remember.’

Harry had to concede the point.

‘Well, your secret is safe with me.’ Phelan winked and went back to his essay.

Needing to shake off the agitation in his limbs, Harry went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Phelan’s speculation seemed more likely the more it sank into his brain. In fact, it made perfect sense: it explained how Draco would know about Jay’s knowledge of rare magic, the implicit and unconditional trust he held for him, the way he went above and beyond to save Jay. More than that, to treat him well.

‘I can see why Dad is attracted to you,’ Phelan said behind him, and Harry jumped. 

He set his glass in the sink. ‘You’ve startled me.’

Phelan leaned on the door frame, surveying Jay’s body with his eyes. ‘Not that you aren’t good-looking. No offense. But Dad has a boner for heroes. I can tell from the way he speaks about our Headmistress, or Kali, or the Custodian, or Vicki’s dad.’

Analysing Draco’s attraction to him wasn’t a conversation that Harry intended to have with a sixteen-year-old kid. Ever. ‘A lot of people appreciate courage.’

The steamroller went on. ‘Not like my dad. He’s, like, _whipped_ for heroes. Honestly, you should ask him about Harry fucking Potter. He gets misty-eyed when he talks about that battle.’

Harry’s heart lurched. The memory of the dead lying under the starry sky of the Great Hall flashed in his mind.

‘Which is why he started fancying you,’ the relentless voice continued. ‘You probably went all heroic during some mission, and Dad lost his mind. He’s a softie deep down. You probably know this. Or maybe you don’t remember it,’ he said thoughtfully.

Harry felt the need to duck under this merciless assault of speculation. ‘This could all be a child’s idle fantasy.’ He used the word _child_ intentionally, and it worked: Phelan scowled, unamused.

‘I know I’m right.’

‘Go back to your homework.’ 

Phelan pushed off the door frame. ‘I will. And I’m right,’ he threw over his shoulder as he walked away.

Another hour passed, and Phelan and Harry both abandoned any pretense of reading or studying — or musing on what heroics Jay might have done in his murky past. Harry had retrieved Jay’s wand and he paced the living room, pausing to peer through the window every ten minutes. The rain had petered out. Phelan bit his nails, staring at the clock. He clutched his wand and wore an eloquent expression: it was the cold dread before the battle. The mental preparation that the worst was on its way and you had to grit your teeth and fight.

Light footsteps echoed from outside. The front door opened, then shut with a gentle click. ‘It’s me,’ Draco called from the hallway.

‘Dad!’ Phelan darted out of the room.

Harry exhaled loudly. He flopped heavily on the sofa and clutched his head in relief. 

Draco walked in with a valiant smile and an arm around his son. He unwrapped his scarf (a soft dove grey that matched his eyes — the first non-black item Harry had seen him wear) and sat in his favourite armchair by the fire, assuring Phelan that _everything was fine, he was fine, nothing to worry about_ , but Harry could see the tense way Draco held himself and the sheen of sweat on his forehead. 

‘Are you hungry?’ he asked him. ‘I could rustle up some lunch.’

‘Starving,’ Draco replied. ‘I’ll come help, while Phelan finishes his essay.’ He pointed at the parchment on the floor. ‘This doesn’t look like a foot.’

Phelan moved his parchment on the coffee table, shoving aside a crystal vase. ‘When I’m done, can we go flying?’

‘Excellent idea,’ Draco said, following Harry out of the room. ‘We could do with some fresh air.’

In the kitchen, Draco leaned against the counter, heaving a deep breath. He rubbed his temples. Harry was beside him in an instant, his rage spiking sharply. ‘Did he _hurt_ you?’

Draco shook his head. ‘Legilimency. The Dark Lord likes to ensure no one lies to him.’ He shut his eyes in a grimace of pain. ‘Having someone else root inside one’s brain is… unpleasant, to put it mildly. And the Dark Lord isn’t exactly gentle as he sifts through one’s memories.’

Harry wouldn’t quickly forget the sickening intrusion of Legilimency. ‘To fool the Dark Lord, you must be an exceptional Occlumens.’

Draco gave him a grim smile. ‘There is a simple motive to becoming the best Occlumens: having a secret that you’d give your life to protect.’

Somehow Harry didn’t think he meant his involvement with the Resistance. He’d like to ponder this new enigma (how many could he take? His brain felt about to burst with mysteries), but there were more pressing questions. ‘Was the meeting about the Hocrux?’

Opening the cool box, Draco began taking out leftovers, opening lids, sniffing inside containers. ‘No. The Whitechapel debacle, as I’d expected. Says we didn’t do enough to solve the case of the magic disturbance.’

‘I thought you said the case was closed.’

‘For my department, it is. For the Dark Lord, no. The problem is, it’s become increasingly harder for him to listen to anyone else. He’s been quite unstable for years. Not the single-minded, sharp-focused wizard of the past, but... erratic. Volatile. Highly-strung.’ Draco shut the fridge. ‘Could you heat this up for me please ? Thank you.’ 

Harry cast a Heating charm — not his best; Jay’s wand still being incalcitrant. ‘Could it be simply old age?’

‘We assumed either that or the side-effects of dark magic use. Our contacts alerted us to the possibility of a Horcrux.’

Voldemort had already split his soul seven ways in the past. He’d now split the fragment that remained in him Merlin knew how many times. No wonder he was losing it.

‘Can I meet your contacts?’ When Draco didn’t reply, Harry smiled. ‘Come on. That little trip of ours yesterday was enough to put both our heads in the noose. You wouldn’t have taken me to Surrey if you didn’t trust me.’

Draco set down the pasta salad bowl. ‘Do you know how the Dark Lord and his Harriers ensure perfect obedience?’ When Harry shook his head, he said, ‘Random Legilimens Probes. Every Ministry employee is subject to a Ra.L.P. by the Harriers at random intervals and without warning. Not me. I have the privilege of allowing only the Dark Lord the honour of rummaging inside my mind. Adult citizens aren’t exempt from Ra.L.P.s. either. One could be hauled in the Ministry for the flimsiest excuse and be subjected to one. Certain Harriers take a lot of enjoyment out of watching people’s intimate moments.’

Bitter bile rose in Harry’s throat.

‘I _do_ trust you.’ Draco stepped closer, eyes fixed on Harry’s. ‘But not everyone is as good an Occlumens as I am. Some secrets are of too high significance to be confided in people who might succumb under skillful Legilimency. Not even Bill Weasley knows how to reach these people.’

‘Really?’

‘He’s a decent Occlumens, but he’s not me. I’ve had eighteen years of practice. Regarding our trip yesterday, we’ve agreed he’ll ask Fleur to remove his memory of the whole morning. A more precise form of Obliviation. She’ll keep it safe for him for the future; for the day we’ll be allowed the privacy of our thoughts. Perhaps one day he’ll be able to remember everything he did to change the world, but tomorrow morning, he won’t have a clue. It also means that if he fails a harsh Legilimency Probe, there won’t be anything there for them to find.’

‘He’ll forget everything about Surrey?’ 

Draco understood his unspoken question. ‘He’ll forget he met you.’ He touched Harry’s arms and squeezed them gently, a reaction possibly to the stinging in Harry’s eyes. _Such a silly thing to feel sad about,_ Harry chastised himself. It wasn’t like Bill had even known who he was.

‘Which is a _good_ thing,’ Draco stressed. ‘Avery was at Headquarters this morning. Kept asking me what happened to that arrest I made last week. It wouldn’t do to see you in Bill’s memories.’

Harry’s lungs strained for air. ‘How can you live in this world?’

Draco said, ‘We can’t.’

++

Harry was as excited as Phelan about going flying. Jittery with the morning’s anxiety and shaken by the new information about life in modern Britain, Harry had to physically restrain himself from jumping on his broomstick as soon as they Apparated to the private field the Malfoys owned outside Harefield.

The cold wind whipped Harry’s ponytail and cut through his borrowed leathers. The air carried the smell of distant snow. He inhaled deep, his lungs expanding, his body tingling with anticipation. Draco wore a similar expression. _Just like old days._ A thrill sparked in Harry’s veins.

Phelan dashed down the slope. ‘What are you two losers waiting for? Catch me if you can.’ He threw his broomstick to fly ahead of him, sped up and then hopped on it mid-air. With a whoop, he soared in the grey sky.

Draco rolled his eyes affectionately. ‘That’s pretty much the only trick he knows.’

Harry snorted. ‘Better show him how it’s done, then.’

The sky, swollen with bruised clouds, threatened rain, and the wind bit through Harry, freezing his fingers and his nose. His ponytail lashed his face on his sharp turns, and his new, longer limbs took some getting used to. Jay had clearly not used his muscles for exercise. 

Nonetheless, it was the best afternoon Harry had had since he’d come back. His state-of-the-art broomstick made his Firebolt look like a child’s toy. It reached speeds Harry hadn’t dreamed of, and he pushed it to the limit, his heart thundering with exhilaration. Despite what Draco said, Phelan was a decent flier, fast and agile, but he lacked his father’s grace on a broom. The three of them raced each other, practiced diving manoeuvres, and finally released a Snitch to catch.

Harry had never lost to Draco before and he didn’t lose now. After half an hour of circling the field and one near-win by Phelan, just as the early night unfurled across the vast sky, Harry noticed the gold glimmer fluttering near the ground. He thrust his broomstick in a corkscrew dive and caught the thing a few inches from the frozen grass. Sweaty and panting and with his hair all over his face, he rose, the Snitch triumphant in his hand.

Phelan gaped. ‘You’re _good_.’

‘Show-off.’ But Draco’s eyes shone with pure joy, the biggest grin transforming his flushed face, and Harry’s heart trilled. A shot of delirious happiness and abject terror pierced him. He clutched the Snitch tighter, the realisation making his hands shake: he was falling in love with Draco Malfoy.

A dilapidated shed in the corner of a leafy park served as the Apparition location near Draco’s home. Muddy and exhausted and grinning, the three of them passed under the rust-iron gates, turning towards home. Phelan kept a running commentary of which moves Harry had made that had impressed him (all of them). The wind whistled through the trees; the only sound besides their footsteps.

At the last corner, Draco gasped and flung his hands out to stop the other two from turning. ‘Someone’s waiting for us.’

His good mood evaporating, Harry peered around the corner. Four, maybe five, dark shapes lingered on the pavement across from Draco’s house. Not Muggles. He pulled back. ‘Who are they?’

‘Not sure. Not inclined to find out.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Phelan clutched his dad’s arm. ‘Victoire will be coming in an hour so we can Floo back to school.’

That seemed to focus Draco. ‘Right. First thing first. Phelan, fly to Kali and explain. Alert Victoire before she comes through. Best stay with Kali for the night; I’ll inform school you’ve taken ill.’

Phelan visibly steeled himself, face grave. He glanced swiftly at Harry and back at his father, who nodded. ‘We need to take all precautions,’ Draco said.

Phelan mounted his broomstick, put his hands on the handle and—

Harry had to do a double-take. Phelan’s legs grew shorter, his skin took a swarthy tone, his hair turned black and long. His trousers tightened against a round belly. His features rippled, the nose lengthening, his lips thickening. Wrinkles lined his eyes. In a few short seconds, a dark-haired, heavy set man in his forties stood in front of Harry.

Harry couldn’t breathe. He stared at the boy, at _Phelan_ , at this metamorphmagus, who had been born sixteen years ago, a month before Harry died; who had been presumed dead. Who had been saved and raised by a young man under the very nose of Voldemort and his ilk. Who’d taken on the appearance of his adopted father, because he loved him so much. Some part of Harry’s mind noticed the wetness on his cheeks, but the rest of it throbbed with one word:

 _Teddy_.

Phelan blinked at Harry’s reaction. ‘I’m a metamorphmagus,’ he said, looking a little offended. ‘It’s nothing _dodgy_ , I've been able to do this since birth.’

Harry nodded, unable to speak, fat tears rolling down his eyes. _Of course it’s not dodgy_ , he wanted to say. Or: _I know. I know you_. Or: _I am your godfather, Teddy_. But the lump in his throat choked every single word. And still the tears fell.

Draco glanced around the corner. ‘We need to hurry.’ He cast a Disillusionment charm over Phelan — Teddy — before the boy took to the air. 

Harry wiped his eyes. He gazed at Draco, his throat working. Eventually he said, ‘A secret you’d give your life to protect?’

‘Mn.’

Draco radiated an odd shyness, as if the revelation of this, his most courageous act, embarrassed him. He coughed to clear his throat. ‘We can Appar— _oh_.’

Harry had flung himself on Draco, their broomsticks clattering on the pavement. He pulled him close, wrapping his arms around Draco’s strong back and holding tight. He didn’t speak. What he felt was bigger than words, impossible to articulate. He pressed his face against Draco’s shoulder, his heart beating against his, and he squeezed even tighter.

Draco stroked his back and didn’t object to Harry almost cutting off his breathing. After a long moment, he whispered in Harry’s ear. ‘The longer we stand here, the more we risk discovery.’

‘Hm.’ Harry’s voice was muffled by Draco’s cloak. ‘Apparate.’

‘We need to hurry back to the shed.’ Draco looped the end of Harry’s ponytail around his fingers, his languid movement belying his words. ‘You’ve got to let me go.’ 

Harry didn’t loosen his arms or remove his face from Draco’s cloak. It smelled nice. ‘Apparate here.’

‘What if a Muggle is looking outside their window?’ 

In an abstract way, Harry knew Draco was right. In a more tangible, immediate way, he didn’t care. ‘They’ll think they imagined it.’

Draco’s lips brushed Harry’s temple. ‘Never cared about rules, did you, Harry?’

Shock.

An anvil dropping on his head would have stunned Harry less. He disentangled himself from Draco and took a step back. ‘What did you call me?’

Draco gazed intently into Harry’s eyes. The street light burnished his hair a bright gold. ‘I know who you are.’

‘ _How_?’ Harry had frozen, body and mind. The past week flashed in his mind, a reel of film unspooling too fast to make sense. When had Harry given himself away?

Draco wore an expression that was equal parts sympathetic and smug. He opened his mouth to say something, but he snapped his head to the right. The sound of boots clicking on the pavement approached them. In an instant, Draco moved next to Harry, but they didn’t have time to flee. 

‘There you are.’ A young lady in the Harrier grey rounded the corner. The wind blew dead leaves around her feet. ‘We’ve been waiting a long time.’

She was young, petite, blond, very pretty; and she also made Harry want to run in the opposite direction. As she strolled leisurely towards them, cold dark eyes fixed on Draco, Harry was reminded very strongly of a shark. 

Draco laid his hand on the small of Harry’s back. He’d smoothed his face in a familiar, pleasant mask of polite superiority and looked remarkably unconcerned. ‘I’d gone flying.’

She took in the fallen broomsticks before she cast a keen glance on Harry. ‘This your boy toy?’ 

Draco’s hand tightened, but his voice remained light. ‘One desires to be entertained. To what do I owe the pleasure of your ambush, Sylvia?’

‘Ambush?’ She scoffed. ‘You’re being dramatic, Draco. I’m here to extend an invitation. Tiberius needs to speak to you.’

The rest of the Harriers had approached and fanned behind Sylvia. Draco didn’t bother acknowledging them. ‘Right now? I need a shower first.’

‘It’s really rather urgent.’

‘Hence the escort,’ Draco said pleasantly.

‘We’re here to ensure you received the summons.’ Her smile held no warmth. She shot an amused glance at Harry. ‘Bring your plaything along.’

Draco’s eyes flashed with fury, but he acquiesced with a nod. Harry understood. A stubborn objection to Harry coming along or a refusal to follow Sylvia would indicate Draco had something to hide, something to protect: and it wouldn’t do to give your opponent this kind of ammunition. Wordlessly, they Apparated along with the Harriers to a riverside location. 

Thames, dark and sluggish, lapped against a few bobbing barges, an articulate stench filling the promenade. Faint music and laughter spilled from inside the brightly-lit house in front of them. Sylvia examined the sweaty leathers of the two men. ‘Best Transfigure your clothes. Tiberius is having a small gala. His wife will have a fit if she catches you in these while she has guests.’

Draco faced Harry. He stood very close, barely two inches away. ‘I’d better do it. Your wand is unreliable.’

Harry glanced in his eyes and couldn’t help whispering. ‘Is that how you figured it out?’

Draco shook his head. ‘No. Now stand still.’ He swayed his wand over Harry and himself, transforming their mud-spattered clothes to smart robes (austere black ones for Draco with a silver thread along the collar and sleeves, and a black and red set for Harry with a leather sash). Harry untied and retied his ponytail, a new nervous habit.

‘One more thing,’ Draco said casually. He took Harry’s hand and slid the Malfoy signet ring on his finger.

It caught the light from the dazzling windows. Harry stared at it, and then at Draco. ‘But— but you said—’

‘It’s the best protection I can give you,’ Draco murmured with a swift caress on Harry’s face. ‘You’ll need it in there.’

‘Ready, lovebirds?’ Sylvia drawled.

Liveried servants let the party inside an opulent, chandeliered hallway. A magnificent staircase climbed to the first floor. Noise erupted from their left as a door opened and shut. The thick smell of a hundred orchids hung heavy in the air, exacerbating Harry’s nausea.

Sylvia led them up the stairs and along a corridor. She yanked a door at the far end, holding it open for them, but a voice behind them stopped both men in their tracks before they could follow.

‘Darling!’

Harry paused, his heart thumping hard, his blood freezing in his veins. He’d recognised the voice. Tense with dread, he swivelled slowly.

A touch greyer, a little heavier, sporting deep wrinkles around her eyes, but still as deadly, she strode towards them and grasped Draco’s hands. ‘You never come to these things.’

‘Aunt Bella,’ he said. ‘Avery wishes to see me.’

She stepped back to survey Draco. ‘You look well. How is that little orphan you took in? I haven’t seen him in years. Do you still keep him?’

The pleasant expression on Draco’s features didn’t change, but Harry caught the rigidness of his back and the curling of his fists. ‘My _adopted son_ ,’ he corrected his aunt with a fixed smile, ‘is at Hogwarts with the rest of his peers.’

Harry had no trouble guessing why Draco strove to keep Phelan away from Bellatrix’s prying eyes. 

She indulged her nephew with a smile. ‘You’ve always been a softie. I worried about you when you were younger. But Cissy was right; when it comes to the crunch, you do the right thing. It’s why the Dark Lord values you so.’ She spoke of her Master in her usual reverent tones. ‘Have you news of your Mother? Is she still in Tuscany?’

‘Malta, now. We’ll visit for Christmas.’

‘And who’s this?’ Family catch-up time done, she aimed the daggers of her eyes onto Harry.

Draco ignored the question. ‘Do you know why I’m here, Aunt?’

She huffed, distracted. ‘Tiberius is in a right tizzy. He wouldn’t rest until he spoke to you.’ 

‘I’m sure we can sort out whatever it is.’

Just before they entered Avery’s study, Draco paused, ostentatiously to fix Harry’s robes. He wrapped his arms around him, straightening the back of his sash, and took the opportunity to whisper in his ear. ‘Don’t react like — like you’re _you_. Be Jay Flint. Inconspicuous. Timid. Can you do that?’

In his first life, Harry probably wouldn’t have managed it. But back then he’d learned to operate mostly alone. Now he was part of something bigger than himself; a network of people and connections that stretched across the country in invisible, unknown to him ways; a network to be protected at all costs. If it meant he had to be unassuming Jay Flint for an hour, he’d do it.

‘I can.’

‘If I could spare you the meeting with the Inner Circle, I would. But it won’t be safe for you to wait outside for me either.’

Harry found Draco’s hand and clasped it tight. ‘Better together.’

Tiberius Avery, a man whose former good looks had sagged into the liver-spotted decay of the overindulgent, loomed from behind an oak desk. Several other people crowded the room, lounging against the velvet-curtained windows or sitting on a leather sofa by the fire. Their conversations stopped when Draco and Harry sat across from Avery, whose eyes widened with surprise when they landed on Harry.

‘I recognise _you_.’ He turned to Draco. ‘Isn’t this the man arrested in connection to the Whitechapel incident?’

‘Arrested and released, because he was a poor sod who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

A young, dark-haired man with his arm around Sylvia snorted. ‘“Released” onto your lap, am I right?’

Draco didn’t dignify the vulgarity with a response. He remained staring at Avery, but their host scowled at the young man. ‘Not the time for jokes, Parkinson. I have had,’ he turned to Draco, ‘ _quite_ a morning. The Dark Lord insists we’ve overlooked something in the Whitechapel investigation. He believes someone is hiding something. I had to suffer his displeasure for two whole hours and have been issued with a deadline of seventy-two hours or my neck is on the line. And now I see you’re stepping out with someone who was arrested at the site of the crime?’

Draco sighed. ‘ _Was_ there any crime? A child protested an early bedtime and brought down a wall. Quite an extreme case of accidental magic, I grant you, but she appears to be particularly precocious.’

‘Nonetheless, this man attacked a Harrier—’

‘Attacked?’ Draco laughed pleasantly. He stretched a lazy hand and stroked Harry’s face. ‘He thought he was stopping a mugging, the poor, misguided darling.’ He trailed his index around Harry’s lips, his voice honeyed with lust. ‘I can’t help but admire Jay’s… initiative. What can I say? It tickles me.’

Leaning against the window, a man with a birthmark removed his cigar from his mouth. ‘I’m sure it was his _initiative_ you admired.’ His hooded eyes on Harry penetrated him in a most uncomfortable way. Harry stifled the urge to Curse him and placed his hand on Draco’s arm. Draco’s warmth seeped into him, steadying his heartbeats.

Standing behind Avery, Bellatrix caught the heavy ring on Harry’s hand. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ she pointed.

‘I want to protect what’s mine,’ Draco said, voice light. He smirked in a conspiratorial tone. ‘You know what these vultures outside are like when they see fresh meat.’

Some of them sniggered at the expense of the guests downstairs.

‘Oh, he’d be _devoured_. He is utterly beautiful,’ remarked a grey-haired lady by the fire.

‘You must have lost your mind, Draco,’ Bellatrix insisted. ‘Your father will be spinning in his grave.’

‘Let him spin,’ was Draco’s icy reply.

‘If I may, Bella’s right, Draco. It’s not like anyone would dream — or dare — to take your... property from you,’ said Avery. 

‘However, one may wish to borrow it briefly,’ drawled the man with the birthmark and the cigar. His hands were smooth like eels. Everything about him made Harry want to gag.

Draco shot a scathing look to the older man. ‘One may lose an arm, if they extend it further than they ought to.’

The man chuckled, dismissing Draco’s threat as insignificant. 

‘What is your allegiance, boy?’ Bellatrix asked Harry. No one had bothered to use his actual name.

Harry glanced at Draco, who looked apprehensive. A slow smile spread on Harry's face. ‘My allegiance is the same as Draco’s. We’re of one mind.’ He held Draco’s gaze and let out everything he’d been feeling. ‘One of the things I love about him is the strength of his courage. His loyalty to his principles. His unwavering dedication to the cause.’ Draco’s eyes shone while Harry spoke. A tremor shook his hands and he clasped them together as Harry continued. ‘Draco uses his power not for personal gain, but for the good of the wizarding world. He has devoted his life to—’ Harry met Bellatrix’s eyes ‘— _doing the right thing_.’

Everyone appeared appeased and somewhat impressed by Harry’s impassioned defense of Draco’s selfless dedication. Avery reddened. ‘We’re all loyal to the cause and devoted to our Master. Look, I don’t doubt you, Draco. I’ve known you since you were a boy and you’ve always had your head screwed on right. However, like I said, I have been given a deadline.’ A sheen of sweat covered his upper lip.

‘With all due respect’—Draco glanced around the room—‘we are all aware of what the Dark Lord has been like ever since the new prophecy. I’m rather concerned about him falling prey to someone’s trap.’

‘What do you mean? asked the steel-haired lady. A gold medallion in the shape of Voldemort’s Dark Mark rested on her mauve robes.

‘I doubt the validity of this prophecy,’ Draco explained. ‘Someone coming back from the dead? Wouldn’t you call it far-fetched, if not impossible?’

Bellatrix interrupted the susurrus that rose in the room. ‘The Dark lord has exceptionally-honed instincts. If he believes Harry Potter will return from the dead, then we ought to trust him.’

The cigar-smoking man said derisively, ‘What can Harry Potter do anyway? He died once, he can die again.’

‘Hear, hear!’ said Parkinson. ‘One boy isn’t a threat to us. And I must admit — expecting him to rise from the dead after sixteen years does sound cuckoo.’

‘There’s never been such a spell in all our archives,’ the grey-haired lady added.

‘But,’ Sylvia chimed in, ‘the Veil in the Department of Mysteries is a direct link to the Other Side.’

‘And no matter how many Muggleborns you push through it, no one has ever come back,’ Draco gritted out.

The casual admission of murder stirred Harry’s nausea. He schooled a bored expression on his face to hide the disgust and horror flooding him. While Draco negotiated the landmine of a conversation, Harry aimed his gaze at the members of the Inner Circle, one by one, fixing each face in his mind. 

_I’m going to take you all out._

Sylvia, pretty and lethal like a garotte. The cigar-smoking man with his heavy-lidded eyes still resting on Jay’s body. Parkinson with the empty arrogance of a man who’d been often told he was exceptional even though there was never any evidence for it. Avery, sweating with fear of the man he’d chosen to serve. The steel-haired woman, with the fire of the cult fanatic in her eyes. Bellatrix, cruel and clever, Voldemort’s unyielding right hand.

Harry was going to take them all out. The self-important, greedy, vain, ruthless people they all were, puffed up on power and wealth, devoid of compassion. He’d grab their regime and pull it out by its fucking roots.

Finally, the conversation ended and they all prepared to return to their party. Pausing on her way to the door, Sylvia patted Draco’s shoulder. ‘I have to say, you’ve chosen well. He might be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.’

 _And he’s right fucking here_ , Harry wanted to say, but he feared if he so much as opened his mouth, he’d explode.

‘He is,’ Draco agreed. ‘Most beautiful. Inside and out.’

‘Oh, you know all about the _inside_.’ Parkinson made a rude gesture and steered Sylvia outside.

Harry hated them. He hated every single one of them.

Free to leave at last, Draco Apparated them home. They removed their boots, un-Transfigured their clothes, and lit the fire and the candles in the living room in silence. The room brightened, but a chill remained in the air. 

Or maybe it was Harry who was chilled. The day had taken quite a toll on him. He fell heavily in an armchair and stared blindly at the fire, hoping its warmth would dispel the horror of his evening in the Death Eater nest. 

An owl tapped on the window. Draco let the bird in, which hopped on the sill as he removed the letter. The air smelled of frost.

‘It’s from Kali. She says she took Phelan to Bill’s,’ Draco read, ‘and he’s taking both kids to Hogwarts tonight. They’ll send someone for his school bag tomorrow.’

Warmth bloomed inside Harry at the mention of Phelan — Teddy. He raised his eyes. Draco had shut the window and remained there, the note crumbled in his hand. 

‘How come you adopted him?’

Draco Banished the letter and sat on the sofa, keeping his distance from Harry. It disconcerted Harry who longed for his touch more than ever.

Draco heaved a deep breath and began. ‘When I glimpsed your dead body, my world collapsed. You’ve probably realised by now that I had feelings for you. But it was more than that; deep down, under the rivalry and the bravado, I wanted you to win. It hadn’t even occurred to me you might not succeed. It truly didn’t register. But you died.’

Harry thought of his death in a rather abstract way. One moment he was there, the next gone. But for Draco, Harry’s death had been a different matter. He continued speaking, his gaze lost in long ago memories. ‘Who knows what would’ve happened if I’d stood beside you? Who knows how things would be different if I’d let myself act on those feelings instead of suppressing them?’ He shut his eyes, anguish written all over his face. ‘You know the worst thing about regret and guilt? They sink their claws deeper as time goes by.’

A car door slammed outside. Draco blinked and shook himself out of his memories. ‘Lots of people died immediately after the war. Executions galore. I retched after each one I had to witness. Things quietened down, but a year later we received an alert about someone trying to flee the country: Aunt Andromeda. Married to a Muggleborn and with the child of a werewolf in tow; the Harriers, newly formed and zealous, wouldn’t even bother with a trial. I managed to find her faster than them. You’ve no idea,’ he said with a grim smile, ‘the Unforgivables I cast in one single afternoon in order to do so. The ends justify the means, right?’

‘You did what you had to.’

‘I couldn’t sit on the fence anymore,’ Draco said. ‘I made a choice: I wanted to save at least one person. My aunt gave me the baby to hold because she’d been Splinched. Suggested we split up. I didn’t realise she meant to lure them away from me and Teddy. I ended up, at nineteen, with an illegal toddler in my arms. My parents were horrified, but they knew that revealing what I’d done would have unpleasant repercussions at a time when the Malfoys lacked favour. So, they kept the secret. Father had Phelan’s papers forged. Mother helped me raise him for a few years before I moved out. No one laid eyes on him until he was old enough to control his metamorphosis.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. ‘We let out the rumour that he was my little bastard from a misspent youth. No one questioned it.’

‘Was this how you knew it was me?’ Harry asked. ‘Because I recognised who Phelan was? Because of my reaction?’ He _had_ reacted rather strongly.

But Draco said, ‘I knew it was you from the moment I saved you from the Harriers.’

_I know you too well._

Harry sat back in surprise. ‘You’re kidding, right? Who would see a stranger and assume he hosted the reincarnated soul of someone who’d died sixteen years ago? Nobody, that’s who.’

Draco let out a small laugh. ‘I’d Apparated on a roof, surveying the area of the magic disturbance. You don’t remember what you did that night, do you?’

‘Nothing that any other bloke wouldn’t do.’

‘Any other bloke wouldn’t cast an Expelliarmus on a freaking _Harrier_. It’s flee or kill, with those ones. And you forget: I’ve seen you cast a spell before. Your posture, your wand movements. You might look like someone else, but—’ Draco leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs ‘—I’d recognise you whatever you looked like on the outside.’

The crackling fire had warmed the room, thawing the chill in Harry’s limbs. Thick like honey, desire trickled through his veins, pooling hot and heavy in his stomach. He wanted Draco so badly it physically hurt him. He could see the corresponding desire in Draco's expression too, but Draco made no move to approach him. The carpet stretched between them, a chasm waiting to be bridged.

‘So, yesterday, in bed.’ Harry had to make sure. ‘Were you talking to Jay or to me?’

‘It was _you_ , Harry. It was always you.’ 

_I’ve always wanted you._

It was as if the room emptied of air. Harry's pulse rang in his ears, a joyous percussion: Draco wanted him. _Him_. Harry.

Draco mistook his silence. He withdrew into himself, proper and sombre. ‘Trust me, I’ll keep my promise. It won’t happen again. You can sleep elsewhere if you wish, although — although I’d rather you didn’t.’

Harry was brought up short. ‘What on earth are you on about?’

Draco smiled bitterly. ‘Harry. I’m not a fool. I realise you can’t feel the same way. I’m willing to bet that one of the last things you remember from your past life is us standing on opposite sides of a battlefield. I pointed a wand at your face in the Room of Hidden Things, and yet, in the end, you saved me. Tonight, you spent an evening in my world, Harry, and you looked sick to your stomach throughout. I know I’m not the sort of person you’d ever consider… uhh… desirable.’

Harry stood. ‘Shut up.’

He managed to startle Draco to speechlessness, which was a good thing. There was only one thing left to say and Harry had to say it. He stalked across the carpet, not stopping until he’d reached Draco — and not even then: he went ahead and straddled him.

It was Draco’s turn to look struck-in-the-head-with-an-anvil. Harry leaned his face down, his breath on Draco’s parted lips. ‘Draco.’ He sat more comfortably on Draco’s lap, eliciting a tiny groan. ‘You _are_ a fool.’ 

And then he kissed him. For a fraction of a second, Draco remained frozen, but then his arms wrapped around Harry’s body. He kissed back, his mouth warm and sweet against Harry’s, still tentative, dazed, disbelieving.

‘You’re such a fool.’ Harry pulled back from the kiss to nip at Draco’s ear. He punctuated his words with kisses and licks and small, teasing bites. ‘How could you—’ he kissed Draco’s neck ‘—think that I’d consider you the same—’ he rolled his hips, moaning at the sensation of his erection against Draco’s ‘—as those people?’ He tugged Draco’s shirt carelessly, sending off a button flying in the air. ‘In case it wasn’t clear,’ he paused in tearing Draco’s shirt off him, ‘I meant what I said back there. Every word.’

The most profound joy suffused Draco’s face. Harry’s heart stirred at the sight of it. ‘Which is why you’re a fool,’ he repeated and bucked his hips hard. ‘But you’re _my_ fool,’ Harry finished.

‘I’m yours,’ Draco said. ‘All yours. Forever yours.’

For a moment they paused, locked in each other’s eyes. Something inexpressible crushed Harry’s chest, a joy he could touch and taste and smell, the kind of seismic bliss that shaped one and left him a different man. Time stood still while they gazed at each other.

‘Forever mine,’ Harry echoed.

They christened the sofa, the kitchen table, the bathtub and, finally, the bed. Exhausted but insatiable, Harry sprawled in bed in his naked glory, his long hair damp on his shoulders, and smirked at Draco, who’d just come in. ‘I could go all night,’ Harry mused. ‘But I’m worried about you, old man.’

‘I’d like to remind you we’re the same age.’ Draco’s eyes flashed with sharp delight. He looked magnificent naked, pale and strong, long-limbed, sweat glistening on his skin. His soft cock twitched.

Harry hadn’t known he was a tease. He was learning a lot of things about himself tonight. Assuming a thoughtful expression, he pouted, knowing _exactly_ the shape his new mouth made. As he expected, Draco’s gaze darkened at the sight of it. ‘You’re thirty-four, but I’m now in the body of a twenty-seven-year-old. I’m much younger than you.’ He winked at Draco. ‘Better stamina.’

Draco gave him a dangerous smirk. ‘Is that a challenge?’

‘What if it is?’

Draco climbed on the bed and crawled towards Harry like a sexy blond panther. ‘You’ll live to regret those words, _Potter_.’

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘You’re all talk, _Malfoy_.’

Draco hovered over him. ‘You cheeky little thing. I’ll delight in fucking you _raw_.’

Harry’s next words were swallowed by Draco’s mouth, who pressed him onto the sheets and kissed him with sixteen years’ worth of longing and passion and regret. Wrapping his legs around Draco’s hips, Harry kissed back with the fierceness of someone who’s been given a second chance in life and he’s not about to waste it.

He loved everything about it: he loved Draco biting him, red little suns blooming on his tan skin; he loved the intoxicating way Draco smelled, his trademark sandalwood scent mixed with sweat and the musk of sex; he loved it when Draco’s cock entered him, that feeling of being stretched and filled, the burn giving way to intense pleasure; he loved licking the vein that popped in Draco’s neck while Draco hovered over him, fucking him raw, as promised. He loved the sounds Draco made, a litany of moans and grunts and a tiny, precious whimper; he loved the gentle way he swept Harry’s damp fringe off his forehead afterwards, gazing down at Harry as if he was something rare and precious.

They spoke of many things before they fell asleep, legs tangled with each other. Harry could finally ask about his friends, and Draco smiled, happy to give good news. ‘Ron Weasley, his sister, Granger, Susan Bones, Dean Thomas and Cho Chang are the Resistance. They’re deep underground. The only person who can contact them is the Custodian. You know him as Shacklebolt.’

His words painted a world of defiant hope. Kali was Padma Patil; Parvati, the Hogwarts Headmistress, was part of it too. Neville sent coded messages via bouquets. ‘Three tulips mean danger; two roses: a meeting is cancelled.’ 

They spoke of Phelan too. ‘Did you know I’m his godfather?’ Harry asked.

‘No, I didn’t know it. Oh, he’ll be _thrilled_. He’s fond of celebrities.’

‘Hey!’ Harry swatted his arm, laughing.

They discussed the Horcrux Hunt — the second for Harry: one for each life. In a perverse twist of fate, he’d be following the clues of his own life, travelling to the places that Voldemort assumed were special to Harry to find the items in his mokeskin pouch. In-between the discussions about sobering things and the plans for the future, they kissed; sweet, lingering kisses. Draco pecked at what was becoming his favourite spot under Harry’s lips. ‘I won’t deny I miss your face, Potter,’ he said, ‘but this little mole will drive me to oblivion.’

In the morning, after only a few hours of sleep, Harry stretched his aching muscles and wiggled his bum. _Ouch._ Boy, he’d be sore all day. He climbed out of bed, padded to the window, opened it and leaned outside, letting the cool dawn air ruffle his hair. Faint golden light tinged the crowns of the trees in the garden where sparrows hopped from branch to branch.

A warm body pressed against Harry’s back. Draco swept his hair to the side and kissed his neck. ‘Breakfast before I leave for work?’

‘Breakfast, or…?’ Harry moved his arse invitingly against Draco’s groin, which was — he was pleased to discover — receptive to the suggestion.

‘You’ll be the death of me,’ Draco complained even as he held Harry tighter. Harry’s eyes fluttered shut with delight. ‘Is this what you’ll be like every day?’ Draco pretended to be exasperated but came across as terribly fond.

Harry looked over his shoulder, grinning. ‘Every fucking day.’


	4. Coda in Four Acts

**One**

First order of business: find a decent wand for Harry. Going to the wandmaker shops was a last resort; Jay claiming his wand suddenly stopped working for him would raise suspicions. 

On a chilly Saturday evening, Phelan visiting again, they sat on the living room carpet, the three of them, cups of tea steaming on the coffee table and a whistling wind outside. Neon red and green shone through the edges of the curtains, London dolled up in festive lights to ward against the relentless night. Inside, a crackling fire warmed the wide space, a gilded table lamp cast honey light on Draco’s and Phelan’s hair, and heat bloomed inside Harry all the way to his core. Before them, a row of wands, silent, an offering of the dead. Draco had collected the wands of most of the Fallen; among others. _Appropriate_ , Harry thought. Even if he didn’t have the memory of it, he carried death under his skin: what better match for someone who’d travelled through the darkness than a wand which grieved?

Harry blinked his thoughts away and focused on the task at hand. Phelan was saying it might be disrespectful to use the wand of the deceased.

‘First of all,’ Draco said, ‘we can’t do anything unless the wand consents anyway. We need its cooperation. And secondly…’ He gazed at Harry. ‘It’s for a good cause. I believe each person here would want to give H-him the wand.’

If Phelan noticed the slip, he didn’t comment on it. They hadn’t told him who Jay was yet. Harry had no idea what Phelan would make of Harry Potter, but the boy was becoming fond of Jay. He’d spent last weekend with them too, keeping Draco and Harry busy with flying and homework and getting him to tidy after himself. They had long leisurely meals, the aroma of a rich stew in the air and the wireless humming wizard rock in the background, while Phelan chatted about the endless variety of things which interested him. Frost glittered on bare tree branches in the garden, but Phelan’s laughter contained the summer. He’d even let Harry into his room and had shown him his Quidditch posters and a photo album from when he was a kid. ‘I went to Hogwarts a year later than the others; Dad told them I was ill. I’d still kept transforming during sleep back then.’ He glanced at Harry, raising a smug eyebrow. ‘I’ve got perfect control now.’

‘That’s impressive,’ Harry said. Phelan beamed and turned another page of his photo album.

Phelan, now, sported a mole under his lower lip.

Harry had slid into their lives like a missing piece, rounding their jagged edges. A puzzle completed. Draco had said once, ‘This used to be a household defined by loss. Love, yes; that too. But loss — loss was the big one.’ He’d stroked Harry’s hair. They were in bed, soft in the dark. ‘You changed that. Now it’s only love.’

Nevertheless, Harry’s identity remained hidden. ‘It’s too precious a secret to entrust to anyone lightly,’ Draco had insisted. ‘I won’t take that risk.’

Meaning: _I won’t take the risk of losing you again_.

Cross-legged on the moss green carpet, Harry handled each wand: Molly’s and Arthur’s, Andromeda’s, even a chestnut one belonging to Sirius, his first one, which Draco had unearthed after considerable search. It’d been gathering dust in an Azkaban safe box since Sirius’ arrest thirty-odd years ago. 

None worked for Harry. They felt… _polite_. Not a true match of innate magic and instrument. No, these wands were _nice_ to Harry, because their owners had liked Harry. They were being _kind_.

Defeated, he placed down the last of the wands — a walnut and unicorn ten-inch one from a Potter ancestor, Draco had said; Harry had hoped the family connection might do it — and huffed. ‘It’s all right. We’ll go and say I lost my old one.’

Draco frowned. ‘I’d rather you didn’t go out in public—’

‘Not this again!’ If he’d let him, Draco was capable of keeping Harry hidden in his house till the end of his days. ‘What can possibly happen in the middle of a busy street on a busy day?’

‘You’ve _no_ idea—’

‘Wait, wait a moment.’ Phelan interrupted the nascent argument and rose, an odd expression on his face. He dashed out of the room and thundered up the stairs. Feet stomped the floorboards upstairs as Harry and Draco exchanged a bemused look. Before long, Phelan returned and knelt beside Harry.

‘These—’ He held out two wands. ‘Dad gave them to me, they’re mine. Well. They’re my father’s and mother’s. I wanted to keep them, but— It’s for a good cause…’ He trailed off, looking embarrassed to admit he cared; that he cared for Harry so much that he was willing to let him use a wand belonging to his parents. ‘Well,’ he exhaled, squaring his shoulders, ‘you need to look after yourself. We won’t always be around to protect you.’

Perhaps Harry should’ve guessed which wand would suit him. When he picked it up, a tingle travelled all the way up from the cedar wood to his shoulder and spread to his body. There was an affinity there; it spoke of purpose, of strong principles, of stubbornness. Of love and loyalty. The dragon heartstring in its core gave Harry’s magic a powerful boost. A bit temperamental; playful, like Tonks.

‘My mother was a Metamorphmagus,’ Phelan said. The fire bathed him in a golden glow. ‘I inherited my ability from her. When I was a kid, Dad and I did safety drills — me changing into another’s appearance to escape — and I used to worry that… that I wouldn’t find my way back to myself. Dad said it doesn’t matter what my body looks like; I’ll always be Phelan, his son.’

Draco drew Phelan in his arms. ‘This offer is incredibly generous.’ He kissed his hair. ‘I’m proud of you.’ Over his son’s head, he met Harry’s eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter what your body looks like; you’ll always be who you are.’

Meaning: _you’ll always be Harry_.

Meaning: _you’ll always be mine_.

Harry loved him so much. He glanced back at the wand in his hand, the one which had accepted him. The wand of a shapeshifter for someone wearing another’s body.

Still leaning against his father, Phelan said, ‘Dad didn’t know my mum well, although they were cousins.’ A fleeting expression of regret tinged with shame clouded Draco’s eyes before he smoothed it away. ‘The Custodian did; he says that she was smart and strong.’

Harry wondered if he could tell Phelan that he’d known Tonks without arousing suspicion. Another secret to carry until the right time, when all secrets would find it safe to come out. He experimented with the wand, casting _Lumos_ and _Nox_ , a thin stream of _Aguamenti_ towards the fire, which hissed; then, _Protego_. The shield shimmered strong around the three of them. Draco rose to his feet, stepped out of the barrier and aimed a few hexes towards them, but they all bounced against the spell. The wand performed excellently, better than Harry had dreamed.

‘I think your mother wants Jay to have this wand,’ Draco said, his hand on Phelan’s shoulder, ‘so he can protect you now that she can’t.’

Phelan wiped his eyes hastily. He picked his father’s wand up and stood. ‘Jay can have it. Until he gets another one or— or whatever.’ He hastened out of the room.

Draco tugged Harry to his feet. ‘Care to use this new wand of yours to tidy up?’

Harry twirled his wand. A tide of tangled emotions had risen in him and he needed to save himself from drowning. He needed Draco’s touch, a raft to carry him across stormy seas. Smirking, he looked at Draco from under his lashes.‘I can think of some other spells I’d rather try.’

Draco licked his lips and slid his eyes down Harry’s body. He stilled in the way he did when he was becoming aroused. ‘Indeed. We need to test the wand quite… extensively.’

Half an hour later, Silencing spells in full force around the bedroom, Draco writhed in bed, naked and panting, as the dildo Harry had conjured fucked him in the arse. Harry briefly wondered if Tonks would mind her wand being used to conjure sex toys, but then he smiled to himself. Tonks would _love_ it. She’d probably complain it wasn’t fuchsia. 

Harry tossed the wand on the rumpled sheets, crawled between Draco’s legs and breathed over his ruddy cock. He peered up at the expanse of pale, sweaty skin all the way to Draco’s flushed face, then back at the cock, twitching among golden pubes. ‘Now, _you_ look neglected, don’t you?’ he said before swallowing him, smirking at Draco’s incoherent, explosive sounds.

* * *

**two**

Draco said this was the house.

Harry searched inside himself and discovered nothing. No thrill or excitement or some sort of sixth-sense recognition presented themselves as he gazed at the house his mother had grown up in. Unlike the one in Godric’s Hollow, marked forever by violence, this was an ordinary two-up two-down in an ordinary neighbourhood, one step up from the worker’s homes swarming around the old mill. The temperature had plummeted as night fell, the chilly wind cut through Harry’s cloak, and he could be anywhere.

‘What are you thinking?’ Draco asked, brushing Harry’s fingers. 

His touch chased away the chill in Harry’s heart. He smiled in gratitude, then nodded towards the house. ‘I fear this might not be the place. I have no real connection to this town, or this street, or this house.’

Draco glanced thoughtfully at Lily’s childhood home. ‘ _He_ thinks you do.’

In any case, it was the best lead they got. Harry’s deduction that Voldemort hid his new horcruxes in locations significant to Harry’s life had been accurate. Two weeks ago, they’d broken into Grimmauld Place in case Voldemort had stashed any there.

Walburga’s portrait hadn’t recognised Harry. She’d yelled at Bill, predictably, but simpered at Draco and who she thought was the son of a Shanghai princess and a British shipping magnate. Sycophantic and imperious at the same time, she complained about loneliness. She’d been abandoned even by her most loyal servant, she said. The reason for it became clear soon afterwards: they’d discovered Kreacher’s mummified body in the kitchen, Regulus’s locket tight around his neck: the new horcrux.

Harry flashed back to the forest, to the night Ron had stabbed the original locket. Everything about this new Hunt was a mockery of the past: Voldemort’s grand trophies of his first life, the exquisite heirlooms he’d chosen to house his soul in, had been replaced by the broken things that a teenage boy carried with him. Even the cheap, worthless locket he’d probably discovered when he raided Hogwarts (or had Kreacher returned here?) was chosen because it’d been used to defeat him once. Revenge; everything about this smacked of petty revenge. He shared that thought with Bill and Draco, and Draco nodded.

‘I told you, he’s not the same. He won’t leave the Manor, he sends erratic and often incomprehensible instructions to us in the Ministry, and very few are loyal to him. They only fear him: he’s still absolutely ruthless.’

Bill said, ‘He’s like a senile man, wanting to hold on to past glory. I guess what you explained about his soul breaking into small pieces might have something to do with it.’ He glanced at the grimy window where a spider web hung thick as a bridal veil. ‘He’s not the one I dread the most. Not anymore.’

Harry knew who everyone truly feared: Bellatrix and Nott Senior. The man with the birthmark and the cigar from the party. The man who’d been eyeing Jay so insistently.

Once they’d finished with the horcrux business and put Kreacher’s soul to rest in the overgrown back garden, they’d made their way upstairs, past the cracked bannisters and the peeling wallpaper. Sirius’s house was falling apart. Harry had never liked it and Sirius had hated it, but it still hurt Harry to witness its irreversible decline. Empty and echoing with only evil for company. Stinking of mould and rat droppings and dust.

‘Can you take me with you?’ Walburga had cried as the three wizards negotiated their way down the corridor around the bones of dead doxies and the debris of falling plaster.

Draco hadn’t even stopped to answer, but Harry had paused and approached the painting. The canvas had cracked, the colours dull under a layer of grime. Behind him, he heard the door opening, Bill skipping down the steps. ‘This was your triumph, wasn’t it?’ he told it gently. ‘Spelling your portrait to the wall to ensure you’d forever remain the lady of this house. Isn’t it ironic?’ He turned his back and headed towards the open door where Draco lingered, waiting for him. ‘This is now your prison.’

Shaking his head, Harry focused on his surroundings: Cokeworth in the Midlands. The sounds of a television drifted from the nearest house, a Christmas jingle, far too cheery for this cold night and their odious task.

Draco nudged him. ‘Here’s Bill.’ 

Bill hurried towards them. ‘Sorry, sorry, I got lost after the Apparition point. Turned left instead of right.’ He greeted Draco with a pat on the shoulder, then glanced at Harry with interest. ‘You must be Jay.’ He stretched out his hand. ‘Bill Weasley.’

Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat. Fixing a smile on his face that he hoped wasn’t a grimace, he shook Bill’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Draco speaks of you a lot.’ Bill had said the same thing last time. He pretended not to be checking Harry out quite thoroughly, like last time. His gaze snagged on the Malfoy ring on Harry’s left hand. Bill’s eyes widened a little at that. Like last time. 

‘When I say “a lot”…’ he amended. ‘He’s always laconic, but he mentioned your name a fair few times.’

‘Does he complain about my inability to do laundry?’

Bill grinned, but Draco interrupted them. ‘Have you brought what I asked you?’

‘Got it, yes.’ Bill fumbled inside the Muggle jacket he was wearing and pulled out a vial. ‘Basilisk venom.’ He handed it to Draco, rubbed his hands to warm them, and said, ‘So, what have we here?’

As Bill had also forgotten horcruxes and what they meant for the fight against Voldemort, Harry gave him a quick summary. ‘We used Fiendfyre before but it’s dangerous. This’—he pointed at the venom in Draco’s hands— ‘should make the process faster. Easier.’ He glanced at the house, uneasiness shivering inside him. ‘The problem is finding the hiding place.’

‘What about the Muggles?’

‘They “won” theatre tickets and an overnight stay in London,’ Draco explained, and Bill nodded in appreciation of the idea.

‘Well. We’ve loitered here long enough,’ Harry said. ‘Better get on with the breaking and entering.’

Disillusioned and using Lumos, the three of them split to search. Like a somnambulist, Harry padded through the shadows of rooms still warm with the aura of their residents. A cat hissed at him from under the sofa. Christmas lights bounced against the photo frames on the mantle. He wandered aimlessly, peering at cupboards or in drawers as if he’d find Voldemort’s horcrux next to a pair of scissors and a squeezed tube of glue. In the kitchen, he aimed his wandlight at the counter — crumbs under the toaster, a white half-full kettle, a mug in the sink from Tenerife — but he knew he’d find nothing. This was all wrong; this place was steeped in Muggleness. However unstable Voldemort might be, he’d never entrust a place like this with a piece of his soul.

The floorboards above him creaked as the others went through the small bedrooms. Harry tried to envision his mother growing up here, drinking water from this same tap, grabbing a snack from the fridge, doing her homework at the kitchen table, but he failed. This house was a stranger to him.

He Alohomora-d the French door and stepped onto the stamp-sized back garden. A pink bicycle leaned against the wall next to a tin watering can. An alley ran along the back, narrow and unlit. Was this where Lily played as a child? A fragment of Snape’s memory flashed in his mind: Snape and Lily on a riverbank talking about Hogwarts.

The others met him at the back door, empty handed as he’d expected. ‘I think I know where to go,’ Harry told them.

They’d passed a park on their way from the Apparition Point. The others followed without questions, even Bill, who trusted him implicitly because Draco did. Down the alley and across a quiet street where the only thing open was a curry shop, they found the park. Frosty grass sloped down to a river wending around the trees. Spinner’s End chimney rose sharp in the distance, a middle finger to the sky. 

Bill cast diagnostics, checking for strong wards, but Harry had found the place before the spells pinged. An abandoned gazebo stood across the river, rusted and mournful looking. It was within sight of Lily’s childhood neighbourhood but isolated enough from the Muggles.

Later, he marvelled at how easy this was becoming. They found his mother’s letter, as he’d expected, vicious whispers rising from it, the words twisting in hateful, malignant coils. But the three of them had done this before, and even if Bill had forgotten, his body hadn’t: muscle memory took over and within minutes, he and Draco had disabled the strong wards while Harry tipped three drops of basilisk venom on the letter. It hissed and wrinkled. Its edges curled inwards. Vile black smoke poured out of it before it lay, charred and useless, on the cement.

Harry swallowed the lump in his throat, mourning the loss of yet another of his own, pitiful heirlooms. He gazed at the river, while the others conjured a fake letter and put the wards back up, their movements quick and perfunctory.

A hand landed on Harry’s shoulder and he flinched, but the sandalwood smell reassured him before he turned his head.

‘Bill’s gone,’ Draco said. ‘Are you OK?’

A knot twisted in Harry’s chest. ‘I’m— I’ll be fine. It’s just— He’s taking everything from me. He took my life, my body, and the few things I had to call mine. He’s taken my past and tainted it.’

Draco cupped his face. The smell of his supple leather gloves reminded Harry of Quidditch: a small comfort. ‘I’m really sorry,’ Draco said. ‘I can’t make this better. I wish I could. I wish I could’ve saved those objects if I’d known — if I’d been able to. But listen to me: one day we will mourn the dead. One day we will mourn our past. One day we’ll be able to live in the open, you and me and Teddy, the Resistance, Bill and his memories. It won’t be long now.’ His cold lips brushed against Harry’s forehead. ‘He might have taken a lot, but you’re back — you’re still Harry. He can never take that.’

Harry pressed a lingering kiss of thanks on Draco. ‘Take us home,’ he whispered. Waiting for the familiar spin into darkness, Harry took the hurt in his heart, acknowledged it, and tucked it deep inside. He’d get over it. Voldemort might have taken pains to foul Harry’s possessions, but Harry had Draco, he had his godson, he had his friends, and they had a _future_.

* * *

**three**

The last thing Harry remembered was turning the corner of their street with Draco and a muffled incantation behind his back.

He came to lying on the stone floor of a cellar, head fuzzy. A strong smell of wine surrounded him and a torch on the wall provided the only illumination. He glimpsed the outline of wine barrels down the other end of the room. ‘Draco?’ he whispered, his voice hoarse, and made to move, but to no avail. He’d been tied up.

Dread kicked his pulse into overdrive. He turned his head to his right, relief flooding him at the sight of Draco shuffling to a sitting position, wrists and ankles tied up, but unhurt otherwise. A wooden chair sat across the space. Harry couldn’t see any torture instruments around, which, he supposed, was promising.

 _Unless they’ll roll them in_. Harry pushed his rising terror down. ‘Any idea where we are?’

Boots clicked on the dusty floor: two sets. Their captors emerged from the shadows into the torch light.

Draco exhaled loudly. ‘Are you fucking serious?’

Harry’s mouth had fallen open. ‘ _Padma_?’

She glanced at him irritably and ignored him. She and her sister had been the prettiest girls in the school, and even now, at thirty-four, Padma was breath-taking. She also looked rather scary; Harry knew the risks she took for the Resistance and how hardened she was, even if her sweet face and petite frame made her enemies underestimate her. Kingsley stood beside her, impressive as ever, his hair completely white.

‘What the absolute _fuck_ is going on?’ Draco demanded again.

Padma crossed her arms. ‘What do you think? We’re here to save you.’

‘ _From what_? A boring evening listening to the wireless?’

Wordlessly, Kingsley pointed at Harry. Draco spluttered. ‘Save me from — _my boyfriend_?’

‘Exactly!’ Padma said. ‘A boyfriend who appeared on the scene two months ago and now _lives_ with you. A boyfriend whom you gave the Malfoy ring within _days_ of meeting. Can you not see it, Draco? How mad this is? You’re under a spell!’

‘Do you take me for an idiot?’ Draco hissed. ‘That I’d do these things recklessly because I got _horny_? Or don’t you trust me?’

Padma sighed. ‘We trust you. We don’t trust _him_.’ Her slim brown finger pointed accusingly at Harry.

Unable to hold back any longer, Harry let his laughter spill out. He’d feared the worst but instead they’d been caught by the Resistance, their _allies_ , who had decided to stage an intervention for Draco’s love life. Sure, greater things were at stake than simply who Draco took to bed, but Harry’s earlier tension needed the release. He pursed his lips to stop the giggles from coming out but couldn’t quite manage it.

‘I’m glad you find this amusing.’ Draco’s icy cold tone only made Harry laugh harder. With some effort, he contained himself. He raised his bound hands to wipe his eyes.

Kingsley gazed at Harry as if he were a lunatic before he addressed Draco. ‘He could have Love-potioned you or cast an Imperius. He could be—'

‘He’s _Harry Potter_ ,’ Draco snapped.

Silence. Two mice scurried along the far wall. The dust was getting to Harry; he sneezed. Kingsley and Padma still hadn’t moved, peering uncomprehendingly at Draco and Harry.

Kingsley snapped out his wand and threw a rapid fire of diagnostic spells on Draco while Padma stepped backwards and flopped in the chair. She cradled her head. ‘They did something to him,’ she muttered to Kingsley. ‘All the Legilimency — he’s gone insane.’ She seemed close to tears. Padma clearly cared for Draco, and Harry liked her a little more because of that.

‘He’s not insane,’ he said, raising his head to meet her eyes. ‘It’s me. Harry. In someone else’s body.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Kingsley’s voice boomed. ‘We all saw his corpse.’

Wearing a put-upon expression, Draco launched into everything they’d found out about the sacrifice. They’d visited Jay’s flat one evening and dug into his past, looking for answers. A grimoire was stashed under a floorboard in the small room Jay had devoted to his ancestors. They’d discovered that Jay’s aunt was the leader of a death cult in Shanghai, and he’d collected a number of her spells and rituals, including the sacrificial array he’d used. Before magically sealing Jay’s flat, they left his wand beside his parents’ memorial tablets; the only funeral they could give to the man who’d exchanged his life with Harry’s. Harry hoped his ancestors would welcome him gladly.

‘I find this story extremely hard to believe,’ Kingsley said when Draco finished.

Padma leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, eyes piercing Harry. ‘Tell me something only Harry Potter would know.’

Harry wracked his brains. They hadn’t been close at school and he’d no idea what to say, apart from the obvious. ‘You went to the Yule Ball with Ron in Year Four. We neglected you — you and Parvati. You danced with a Beauxbatons boy in the end.’

Predictably, she didn’t look impressed. ‘Hundreds of people know that. Draco could’ve easily mentioned—’

‘If you think I paid _any_ attention to you whatsoever during the Yule Ball…’ Draco murmured.

She glared at him. ‘You’re not helping your case by pissing me off.’

‘I have something else.’ Harry pointed at the hulking figure of Kingsley and said, ‘You, Professor Moody, Ron and Hermione, Bill and Fleur, a few others — you came and got me from Privet Drive just before my seventeenth birthday. Six of you drank Polyjuice and became me. You took to the sky riding broomsticks and Thestrals, except for me; I was in the motorcycle with Hagrid.’

Kingsley’s jaw dropped. His eyes, wide with shock, raked over Harry’s body. ‘How— how is this possible?’

A sudden desperation seized Harry. He longed for his old friends to know it was him; that under the long hair and the high cheekbones and the large brown eyes, he was _Harry_. ‘Trust me, please. I know it’s hard to believe — sometimes I don’t believe it myself — but it’s _me_. Jay Flint summoned me back.’

The ensuing few seconds of silence dragged like infinity. Harry held his breath, waiting for Kingsley to speak, but he said nothing. Instead he stomped towards him, laying his hands rough on Harry’s arms. Harry glanced up in alarm, but he was swept in a crushing hug.

‘This can’t be real. This can’t be real,’ Kingsley murmured.

‘It _is_ ,’ Draco said. ‘Can you fucking untie us now?’

The reunion was accompanied by tears, smiles, exclamations of awe at the spell which had summoned Harry back, and sniping remarks from Draco regarding the ridiculousness of being kidnapped by his own allies. The phrases ‘cashmere jumper’ and ‘filthy floor’ were uttered repeatedly, usually followed by Padma’s ‘do you think I give a fuck about your clothes, Draco?’

The cellar belonged to a modest Edwardian country house. ‘It’s a National Trust building,’ Padma explained as she led them upstairs. ‘It’s safer to hide in Muggle places, though not entirely. Magic leaves traces, and the Harriers are good at tracking.’

They crowded around a damask-covered table in an ornate parlour, their breaths clouding in the chilly air until Kingsley cast a series of warming charms that raised the temperature to tropical. The three of them rarely got to meet, and Draco took the chance to fill them in about the horcrux hunt. ‘We took out three. We suspect he has two or three more. Hogwarts and Godric’s Hollow are the other likely candidates, location-wise.’

‘I want to meet Ron and Hermione,’ Harry said suddenly. ‘I know what you’ll say, what Draco says, my Occlumency is decent but not perfect, but— I need to see them.’ He burned with the desire to hear Ron’s laughter again; to see Hermione’s smile.

Kingsley frowned. ‘I understand, Harry. But what you’re asking is… My apologies, but I can’t grant your request. There’s too much at stake. It’s crucial we keep the core members away from Draco, and you’re too close to him.’

Padma shrugged in apology. ‘You have to be patient, love.’

Harry deflated. Draco reached out and interlaced their fingers together, and Harry squeezed his hand. He wasn’t the best at patience, but he had to content himself with the knowledge that his friends were out there, safe for the time being. Perhaps even happy.

‘If you come up with a way to make it happen…’ Harry said.

‘Perhaps,’ Draco said in a wry tone, ‘they can kidnap us next. Just give me a heads up, I want to make sure I’m not wearing my—’

‘Honest to God, Draco, if you say the word “cashmere” once more time—’

* * *

**four**

When Harry received the parcel, he’d been looking for clean socks in the bedroom and Draco was downstairs reading. The owl screeched twice before Harry decided to unlatch the window, even though he knew only Phelan’s and Padma’s owls could pass the wards. This one carried a tightly wrapped parcel stamped with an icon of Kali and the initials HP scribbled under it.

He sat on the bed and stared at it, unwilling to raise his hopes up. It’d been over a month since Padma and Kingsley had abducted them and Harry had leaned in Padma’s ear before they left and had made a wild, impossible, utterly _mad_ request. It was a long shot, but if anyone could make it happen, it was Ron and Hermione.

He unwrapped the parcel with gentle fingers, heart thumping with anticipation. Under the paper was a white cloth and inside it—

Harry shut his eyes, fearing he’d explode from giddiness. They’d come through, his friends had. He hadn’t truly expected it, although he’d dreamed of it repeatedly these past few weeks. A glass vial was tucked beside the white cloth, sealed and protected with an Anti-Shatter charm.

There was also a letter. Harry assumed Padma had something to convey to him, or to Draco, or both, but when he glanced at the handwriting, his breath caught.

_Harry,_

_Oh, Harry, is it really you? Kingsley assured us it is, he’s explained the miraculous circumstances that brought you to us, but, still, this is so hard to believe. But I want to believe — I want to believe that you’re back with us. How_ are _you? The Custodian says you don’t look like yourself anymore? Are you OK? Are you safe? Is it true you’re shagging Malfoy?! Is he good to you? I think he must be —we know what he’s done for Teddy. Oh Harry, I’m burning with questions but what I want most of all is to give you a hug._

_We have so much to tell you! Ron and I got married. No children yet but we’ve been considering it lately. Ginny and Cho are happy and safe too. They’ve been together for over a decade now. Ginny says it’s hilarious you both turned out queer. Cho is delighted with the fact you now look Chinese. They adopted an orphan we rescued out of the wreckage of her home; they named her Harriet but call her Hetty. Hetty’s eight and she’s like you, stubborn and clever and brave._

_It’s been a long sixteen years, Harry. Sixteen years in which we hid and fought and lost people and suffered and tried to make a change. In my darkest moments, I wondered if we weren’t just treading water, spending our lives in a fight against state-condoned bigotry with no end in sight. But you’ve given us hope, Harry. I’m shocked that this rumour of a new prophecy came true; and perhaps the old prophecy might come true again._ Neither can live while the other survives. _Last time he won, Harry, but last time he was powerful, and you were young. That isn’t the case anymore._

_K told us about the horcrux hunt. Parvati is on the lookout at the castle already; if she finds it, she’ll take care of it. Dean and Susan will go to Godric’s Hollow. It’s watched, and it’s best that you, Bill and Draco don’t show up there. We have ways to travel undetected. I can almost hear your protests: that other people will put themselves at risk because of you. But we’ve been putting ourselves at risk for sixteen years._

_Trust me, we’ve got this. Unlike last time when we were teens struggling in the dark, we have experience and resources and a network of people who can help. You’ve always wanted to do things alone, Harry, but you’re not alone anymore. I doubt Draco will let you make one step without him. We’re by your side too; then, and always._

_I can’t wait for the day we can meet face-to-face. It isn’t safe for us to come into contact with Draco. It’s of the utmost importance that he remains above suspicion._

_I’d say your request was surprising but, then again, perhaps it isn’t. Luckily, we’ve kept your backpack in that purple bead bag — do you remember it? We have it in storage — and I found your old brush and shaving kit. I took the liberty of brewing the potion for you too. Use it well, but make sure you don’t leave the house while enchanted._

_I’ve got to go. Ron says hi. He’s beyond himself with joy. He hasn’t stopped crying since we heard. He’s missed you the most._

_I love you, Harry. We both do._

_Say hi to Draco for us._

_Hermione_

Harry’s tears fell thick on the parchment, smudging the ink. Hastily, he wiped them away and reread the letter, caressing the edges of the paper where Hermione, and Ron perhaps, might have touched it. He stayed with it a long time, letting the words sink into him, before he folded it carefully and tucked it somewhere safe.

His gaze fell on the white cloth. Funny, such a mundane thing to have become so priceless to him. The mere thought of what this entailed set his pulse galloping. He’d thought he’d have another month before trying it out, but Hermione had been considerate enough to send him the potion and—

—and there was absolutely no reason not to give it a go _tonight_. Harry’s mouth went dry. He moved to the desk, some part of his brain making the decision without any conscious input, and scribbled down a note. _When you get this, wait five minutes and come upstairs. I have a surprise for you._

The note floated downstairs. Harry shut the bedroom door, returned to his dresser, and picked up the white cloth. Merlin, his hands shook! He unwrapped it carefully and selected one of the black hairs. After dropping it into the vial, which turned a familiar golden colour, he took a sip.

For the first time Harry was eager for the Polyjuice transformation. He welcomed the pain of his bones rearranging, his muscles adapting to a new shape. Or, rather, an old shape.

When the nausea vanished, everything around Harry was blurry. His anxiety spiked thinking something had gone wrong, but subsided when he remembered his terrible eye-sight. That was something he’d been happy to live without.

The full-length mirror in the corner beckoned. Harry couldn’t stifle a gasp at his reflection. There he was: Lily’s green eyes, his father’s thick hair, the scar Voldemort had left on his forehead. _I must not tell lies_ , etched forever on his hand. Tossing off his jumper, Harry ran his hands down his torso, the dark hair on his chest, the small pink nipples, his thin ribs. This was him before he died, impossibly young, a bit malnourished, but dazzling with vitality.

The door handle turned. ‘When you said “five minutes”, did you mean precisely five or—' A sharp inhale.

Draco had frozen in the doorway, eyes wide and unblinking on Harry. Harry wished he’d come closer so he could read the expression on his face. Was Draco pleased? Unhappy? Perhaps he preferred Jay’s appearance — he was abnormally beautiful after all…

But Draco’s voice assuaged all his worries. ‘ _Harry_?’ One small, raspy word that contained a lifetime of longing and desire.

‘In the flesh.’ Harry couldn’t resist a joke when one presented itself.

‘Is this a glamour?’ Draco padded slowly towards him. ‘Am I having a hallucination?’

‘Polyjuice,’ Harry said. ‘Hermione has kept my old backpack from when we travelled together. I used to shed a lot.’

‘You look just like then.’ Draco stopped in front of Harry, eyes roving up and down his body, but had made no move to touch him, although Harry could see the telltale signs of his arousal: his stillness, the slightly clenched fists, a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip. ‘You look so…’

‘I’m twenty-seven,’ Harry reminded him. ‘Or thirty-four.’ Or ancient, he felt like sometimes, but didn’t say that. Instead, he moved into Draco’s space — he was a bit shorter now and had to stretch his neck — and whispered against Draco’s lips, ‘You can touch me, you know.’

He accompanied the invitation by taking Draco’s hand and pressing it on his cock.

Draco gasped, his hand instantly curling around Harry’s length which twitched excitedly. Pulling Harry close to him, Draco kissed him almost violently, visibly shaking with want. Harry bucked in the heat of his palm, kissing back equally desperately. Kissing with his own mouth, his own tongue; scraping his own teeth against Draco’s neck. He was fully aroused now, desire sizzling in his veins.

‘I want you to fuck me,’ he breathed against Draco’s skin. His sandalwood smell drove him nuts, and he bucked a little harder against him. ‘I want you to fuck this body. Will you, Malfoy?’

Draco didn’t reply, not with words. He shoved Harry on the bed, divested himself of his shirt, and crawled over Harry. ‘I’ve fantasised about this so many times over so many years.’ He leaned down and mouthed at Harry’s collarbone, leaving small bite marks. His groin ground against Harry’s as he laved his pert nipples.

‘Start with the fantasy where you fuck my brains out,’ Harry panted.

Draco’s smirk was a thing of danger. It lit a fuse inside Harry that obliterated conscious thought. Trivial things such as shimming out of his trousers, tossing his clothes on the floor, tugging Draco’s boxers so hard that he ripped them were vague things, forgotten as soon as they happened. His entire focus was on Draco, flush against Harry, a warm and welcome weight; wrists pinning Harry down, squeezing his forearms, before moving lower to dig into his ribs; Draco’s fair hair tickling his cheek as he sucked at Harry’s neck; spitting in his palm to ease the slide between their two hard cocks; kissing him open-mouthed and wild, groaning in Harry’s mouth, as if his kisses hurt. As if it hurt to stop kissing.

Draco trailed kisses down Harry’s body, crawling to settle between his knees. ‘How long will this last?’

‘I have a few sips for tonight. A few hours. And some extra hairs for the future. We’ll need more potion, though.’

‘On it. First thing tomorrow.’ Draco pressed his face into Harry’s coarser pubes and inhaled. ‘You still smell like you.’ He licked a stripe up Harry’s shaft, who moaned and bucked; Draco pressed him down with one hand on his stomach and wrapped his lips around Harry’s balls.

 _Merlin._ Harry’s brain had been reduced to cinders. Draco’s other hand travelled under Harry, slipping in the cleft of his arse. Harry spread his legs wide, a proper slut, and squirmed, desperate for Draco’s fingers. The need inside devoured him, an abyss he could fall into. ‘I want you in me, Draco,’ he panted. ‘Hurry the fuck up.’

‘Always so fucking impatient.’ Draco slid a slick finger inside Harry’s arse. Harry had learned to relax and accommodate the intrusion, but this body was a virgin. His channel burned with the stretch, but the pain gave his pleasure an edge that pushed it sky-high. Harry felt drugged with lust — could lust do that? Losing his brain because he was _him_ again, and Draco was fucking him.

After what seemed like an infinity of prep to Harry, during which he pleaded most wantonly for a proper fuck, resorting even to insults about evil Slytherins, Draco sat back and shoved a pillow under Harry’s hips. Kneeling between Harry’s open legs, Draco slicked his cock but paused, taking Harry in as he sprawled on the bed. His expression was as dazed as Harry felt. 

‘ _Harry_ ,’ Draco whispered again, reverently. 

Harry gazed at the eyes of the man he loved, a man who’d longed for him, pined for him for years and years, with no hope of having his love returned. ‘I love you, Draco.’ Draco found his hand and clenched it tight, his eyes shining. ‘Now fuck me, or I’ll get pissed off.’

Draco obliged. He lined up and pressed in. ‘Oh, you’re so tight.’ His eyelids fluttered shut, his expression betraying unbearable pleasure, but he kept going.

Harry hooked his ankles around Draco’s hips. ‘I can take you.’

Draco pumped, slow and deep, letting himself adjust to the snug heat. Harry sank into his pillow, enjoying the leisurely rhythm. Every inch of his body glowed with sweat and rampant joy, languid and warm. He loved being filled, he loved Draco being so close to him that they were one. 

Draco’s thrusts became harder, faster. He leaned over him now, the new angle bringing new sensations in Harry. Harry gazed up at Draco and snatched a kiss, and Draco kissed him back, messily and sloppily, open-mouthed, panting. ‘Harry, Harry…’ he murmured between kisses.

‘I’m close,’ Harry panted, and Draco rose back on his heels, grabbed Harry’s hips flush against his groin, and thrust so deep that Harry saw stars. Holding him like that, Harry’s lower body almost in the air, legs on Draco’s shoulders, Draco fucked him so hard that Harry had to hold onto the headboard to avoid bumping into it. He came so hard he almost lost consciousness.

A few hours and several bouts of sex later, they had to stop and change the sheets, because they were drenched with sweat, saliva and come. Outside snow had started falling, soft as a caress. Harry took the last sip, feeling the shudders travel down his spine, and burrowed under the blankets. His whole body ached, and he could see some bruises forming already. His arse, sore and abused, hurt when he moved, the throbbing ache a reminder of pleasure.

He would never forget this night. Never.

Draco emerged from the loo, turned the lights off and climbed into bed with Harry, pulling him into his arms. He traced Harry’s shoulders, his collar bones, the burn mark the original locket had left on his chest. He seemed determined to commit Harry’s contours to memory, to map them with his touch.

‘In the morning I’ll be Jay,’ Harry murmured, his eyes drooping.

‘In the morning you’ll be Harry,’ Draco corrected. ‘Still beautiful. Still my Harry.’

As exhaustion finally caught up with Harry and his breath slowed, enveloped by Draco’s smell and his strong arms, Harry envisioned their future together: days spent in companionship, and night after night spent in bed, giving each other joy. A fight was coming, though; a struggle that could cost them in suffering and blood.

 _Overthrowing the regime will take a miracle_ , Kingsley had said in the dark Edwardian manor. Draco had smiled at that and gazed at Harry. _Indeed. Which is why we’ll win_.

_**FIN** _

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [a headcanon I posted on tumblr a few weeks ago.](https://magpiefngrl.tumblr.com/post/624299395483140096/nourix-png-shealwaysreads-bixgirl1/)
> 
> Liked this? Please consider reblogging the [tumblr post.](https://magpiefngrl.tumblr.com/post/625968151141761024/the-boy-who-died-a-gift-for-bixgirl1/)
> 
> [tumblr](http://magpiefngrl.tumblr.com/) & [twitter](https://twitter.com/MagpieFearne/)
> 
> Kudos and comments are seen and loved! ❤❤


End file.
